Why Diversity Is a Competitive Edge in Corporate Finance

Women make up roughly half of entry-level talent in finance globally, yet hold only around 15% of managing-director-level investing roles. The drop-off is sharpest in investment banking and corporate finance, where deal teams at the senior end remain heavily male. That gap is not just a fairness issue. It is increasingly a performance one.

McKinsey’s long-running research on executive teams backs this up. In its 2023 update, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive team were 39% more likely to financially outperform their industry peers, up from 15% when the firm first ran the analysis in 2015. At board level, gender-diverse companies were 27% more likely to outperform than the least diverse boards. The pattern has held and strengthened across every edition of the research since 2015.

The mechanism isn’t mysterious. Research from decision-analytics firm Cloverpop, based on hundreds of real business decisions, found gender-diverse teams made better calls than all-male teams 25% more often, rising to 87% better when age and geographic diversity were added too. In a deal environment where the cost of a bad call, a missed risk, or a blind spot in due diligence can run into the millions, that difference compounds fast.

Perth’s corporate finance market is small and relationship-driven, which makes the talent pool problem more acute than in bigger cities. If firms are only drawing from the same narrow slice of the market for senior appointments, they are missing candidates who could genuinely strengthen a deal team, not just diversify it on paper.

This is why we treat diverse shortlists as standard practice at JP Search rather than an add-on. It usually means looking earlier in a candidate’s career, being deliberate about who gets put forward for senior corporate finance and investment banking roles, and pushing back when a shortlist looks too familiar. If you’re building a team and want a genuinely wider search, or you’re a candidate who wants a confidential conversation about where your career could go, get in touch.