If studies show that women hedge fund managers take different risks and produce better returns than their male counterparts, why are they still not pulling in the proportionate amount of assets? Nadine Terman, 42, got tired of listening to people talk about that problem, so in 2013 she created a solution: a fully sponsored conference for the group 100 Women in Hedge Funds that puts asset allocators in the same room as woman-owned or -managed hedge funds. The event started in San Francisco, close to where Terman earned an undergraduate degree in quantitative economics at Stanford University in 1994. There, a professor connected her with New York–based financial consulting firm Cornerstone Research, where she became an analyst after graduation. The Chicago-area native soon moved to Goldman Sachs Group to work as a fixed-income analyst at a time when, she says, women weren’t allowed to wear pants to work. Terman then switched to private equity, joining New York–headquartered Behrman Capital as an associate from 1996 to 1999. After earning an MBA from Stanford in 2001, she became a partner at San Francisco–based leveraged buyout firm Blum Capital Partners. In 2010 Terman and colleague J.C. Torres left Blum to launch hedge fund firm Solstein Capital, also based in the Bay Area. The $20 million firm, which opened in August 2011 after CEO Terman and CIO Torres took some time away with their families, is a global value investor, highly concentrated in just ten to 15 positions. This success has only made Terman more dedicated to ensuring that women investors get their due; the 100 Women in Hedge Funds conference is poised to expand to the East Coast and to Europe.
| |
