A life-size replica of the bronze Fearless Girl statue is set to stand on the UC Irvine campus this week as Newport Beach finance executives are scheduled to gather for the 10th anniversary of an event built to crack open one of the industry's most stubborn barriers: the near-total absence of women managing American investment funds. The gathering, called Tearing Down the Pink Wall, is set to feature Newport Beach-based asset managers Jane Buchan and Katy Sherrerd alongside moderator Anna Paglia for panel discussions aimed at students considering careers in finance.
The event, hosted by Women Investing in Security and Education and held in partnership with UCI's Continuing School of Education, is set to return to campus for the third consecutive year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Since launching a decade ago, the initiative has reached more than 10,000 participants across more than 20 events, per the same report. The nonprofit, whose mission centers on financial empowerment for females of all ages, regularly brings in speakers who appear on Barron's 100 Most Influential Women in Finance list, the Times reported.
The data behind the event's urgency is stark. Women accounted for just 11% of portfolio managers running U.S. open-end and exchange-traded funds at the end of 2024, according to Morningstar, a figure that has barely budged in two decades despite industry diversity initiatives. That stagnation persists even though a 2024 Morningstar study of 40 U.S. asset management firms representing $16 trillion in assets found no statistically significant difference in performance between funds run by women and those run by men.
A Statue With Its Own Legal History
The Fearless Girl replica at the center of the UC Irvine event carries a complicated backstory of its own. The original 50-inch, 250-pound bronze sculpture was commissioned by State Street in March 2017 to encourage corporate board diversity, according to Wikipedia, and initially stood facing Wall Street's Charging Bull before relocating to stand directly opposite the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. At UC Irvine, the statue symbolizes female empowerment, per the Times account.
State Street settled a five-year federal intellectual property lawsuit with sculptor Kristen Visbal in April 2024 over her unauthorized sales of replica statues to third parties, according to Banking Dive. The dispute offers an unexpected legal footnote to a sculpture now used as a teaching symbol on a Southern California campus.
Orange County Executives Share Career Paths
Buchan, who serves as Newport Beach-based CEO of Martlet Asset Management, said Orange County has a character distinct from Los Angeles and that investment management remains a career path many young women may not even consider, per the Times report. She also founded Pacific Alternative Asset Management Company in 2000 and built it into one of the largest hedge fund managers, according to the same account. Buchan noted that wealth is being transferred to women over time, a trend borne out by McKinsey research showing women in the U.S. are projected to control up to $34 trillion in financial assets by 2030, up from $10 trillion in 2018, driven by longer female lifespans and an accelerating intergenerational wealth transfer.
Sherrerd, vice chair and chief executive of Research Affiliates, is set to join Buchan at the event. Her firm rebranded as Syzygy Asset Management in September, following the $490 million sale of its index business to TMX Group to focus on managing money, according to The Daily Upside. Buchan, Sherrerd and moderator Paglia all serve on the WISE advisory board, the Times noted.
Student Voices and Industry Gatekeepers
Vika Sokolova, who holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics from UCI and earned a master's degree in finance this past August, attended the previous year's event and is scheduled to speak at this year's gathering. She said math rooms are about 85% men and described the event as an education and community-forming opportunity, according to the Times report.
Devin Shanthikumar, associate dean for undergraduate programs at UCI's Merage School for Business and an accounting professor, is also scheduled to take part. The event aims to help the next generation of women entering an industry where they have historically been underrepresented, per the Times account. Angela Dailey, WISE board chair and a Huntington Beach resident, has helped steer the initiative since it started at UCI a decade earlier before expanding from its origins as a Wall Street media forum launched by public relations firm DAI Partners in 2016.
The Orange County event represents a broader push to close a gender gap in finance leadership that, by the numbers, has scarcely moved in a generation.
