For International Women’s Day this year, Hedgeweek spoke to Trudi Usher Boardman, Head of Hedge Funds at Pictet Alternative Advisors, and Hedgeweek’s sister title Private Equity Wire spoke to Meryem Bensaid, a Principal at Blackstone.
Tell us a bit about your background and how you got into the world of hedge funds.
I have been researching and working with hedge funds for over twenty years. I started researching hedge funds in 1999 at Cambridge Associates as part of my broader role covering total portfolios as an Analyst, working for endowments, foundations and large family clients.
My introduction to hedge funds at this stage triggered my interest in the broad and flexible opportunity set, and I moved to Morgan Stanley & Co in London to work with their prime brokerage hedge fund clients. I spent four years there before joining a hedge fund investor in Geneva called Partners Advisers in 2005. At Partners Advisers, I was focused on researching equity-oriented hedge fund strategies and spent a lot of time travelling globally to build out my research coverage. In 2013, I moved back to Cambridge Associates in London, where I spent ten years, most recently as a Managing Director – Hedge Fund Specialist, allocating to hedge funds on behalf of institutional clients.
I joined Pictet Alternative Advisors in November 2023 as Head of Hedge Funds, leading the experienced team in allocating to external hedge fund managers. The constantly evolving world of hedge funds has made the past 23 years fly by and there has never been a dull moment.
Is investing still a male-dominated world? What has changed in this respect, if anything, during your career?
There are more women hedge fund managers and analysts now than when I started my career, but I would love to see more women enter the industry. Despite more strong female analysts coming up the ranks, it remains male-dominated from a portfolio manager perspective. It is great to see more female partners in the roles of CFOs and COOs and other business leading roles too. The hedge fund industry is a meritocracy where entrepreneurial spirit and investing talent are rewarded — I expect to see more women at senior levels over time, but it remains a work in progress.
Does Robyn Grew’s role as CEO at Man Group — the world’s largest listed hedge fund — show that things are changing for the better in the hedge fund industry?
Yes, more talented women in industry-leading roles are great to see and overdue. Elif Aktuğ, CEO of Pictet Alternative Advisors, hired me, and she was a key reason why I was so excited to join Pictet. Her vision and focus on diversity were so important in understanding how Pictet continues to prioritise the benefits of diversity.
How can gender diversity improve further? What steps can firms take and what initiatives do you see as important? What advantages can progress in these areas deliver for asset managers and other industry participants?
Visible presence of women at all levels of the alternatives industry needs to be a continued focus for us all. Concerted efforts in recruitment and actively seeking diverse talent — not just waiting for it to come to you — are worth the effort and an important way we will continue to make progress.
I think we all need to work to address biases in girls’ education as well. For many girls, the subjects they are steered towards at school do not optimise their chances to move in to front office roles in asset management. As a Mum of two boys and a girl, I already see those biases emerging and am working hard to make sure we are talking about and raising awareness of these issues with our kids. I have had immensely good fortune to have strong female mentors as well as engaged and unbiased male mentors throughout my career, and those experiences have been instrumental in my ability to make the choices about how my career would evolve. Senior professionals can make such a difference to whether junior talent, once hired, will stay and thrive. Therefore, I think robust mentoring programmes are incredibly valuable.
Visible mentors, focused recruitment that appeals to women and training programmes that address unconscious bias are all steps forward, and our industry needs to make that more of a focus.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in hedge funds to help them succeed?
Find a mentor who will be your coach, tell you the truth and who genuinely supports you. Don’t wait for opportunities to come to you, be creative — go and create them yourself by building a network and being generous with your knowledge. And remember, your career is long so it might not be a straight path. Don’t be afraid to make a tough choice if it has long-term prospects, even if it isn’t the most profitable short-term option.
Trudi Usher Boardman, Head of Hedge Funds, Pictet Alternative Advisors – Trudi Usher Boardman joined Pictet Alternative Advisors (PAA) in November 2023 and was previously Managing Director – Hedge Fund Specialist at Cambridge Associates from 2013 to 2023. Prior to that, she held roles at Partners Advisers and Morgan Stanley & Co. Trudi graduated from Durham University with a BA in Economics and is a CAIA charterholder.
