Wincrest Capital is an asset management firm, with an expertise in alternative asset classes
Morgan Stanley's Women’s Lyford Conference: The Ladies Brought their A Game
This isn’t about Leaning In. This is about wishing every conference were as useful.
As a veteran of Best Ideas conferences, which usually consist of male portfolio managers rattling off hedge fund hotel stock picks and macro outlooks with great bravado, I was expecting more of the same at Morgan Stanley’s Women’s Lyford Investment Roundtable. Whereas, what we got was two days of extraordinarily well-prepared unique stock pitches, insight into sectors from private and public market participants, enlightening conversation and thoughtful debate. I don’t know why I was expecting anything less. It’s not unusual for women on Wall Street to work harder to be heard. We should all be listening.
Each woman brought her best ideas, presented them brilliantly, and was on her A game. Interestingly, a PM at one of the world’s largest long only asset management firms experienced her voice quivering whilst pitching her stock. When she and I spoke later, she shared that she is perfectly comfortable pitching to a group of men, and does all the time, but that pitching to such discerning women made her nervous. There was no getting off the hook lightly with these ladies’ questions. Admittedly, after day 1, I did get up an hour earlier to brush up on stats around my own stock picks!
One of the highlights of the round table was two women having, unbeknownst to them, submitted the same name as their top idea. One cited it as her top long and the other as her top short! To complicate matters, post the respective pitches, we were asked to vote on whether the stock was a long or short! The result? An astonishing 47%/53%, which illustrates just how well prepared and convincing both women were.
The women who attend Morgan Stanley’s Lyford Conference are smart, thoughtful, ambitious, and in one case, 8.5 months pregnant with a third child on the way. As a female founder and CIO, I felt hugely encouraged and inspired by this event. Whilst there were only three women at the round table who were both the Founder and CIO of their firm, based on the caliber of talent in the room and side discussions had, I foresee that number increasing quite dramatically over the next few years.
Thank you, and well done, Morgan Stanley!