The Athena Collaborative: Putting Women in the Investment Banking Pipeline

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“The pipeline leaks start very, very early,” said Christina DelliSanti Miller, founder of the Athena Collaborative, an organization whose mission is to expand the population of women entering and thriving in quantitative careers. She explained that research shows “girls check out of math in 6th grade.” On the other hand, “Math and STEM careers are the most lucrative. Girls are socialized or self-selecting out before they realize what business is.”

“More than half the people going to college are women. In the securities industry, only 14% of people at the highest level are women,” she said. Shouldn’t these numbers be closer to parity?

Patching the Leaky Pipeline

Providing mentoring and internships to young women is one way the Athena Collaborative works to plug those pipeline leaks.

Miller, former Head of Diversity at Barclays and a social psychologist, has 20 years of experience working in diversity functions in big business – and the last 10 years in the financial services industry. She founded the organization after seeing not only a decrease in the number of women in the industry, but also the difficulties companies were facing in building diverse teams. She said, “We were competing for a small pool of women,” she said. “The higher up you go, there are less women.”

She recalled how, years ago, one of her industry colleagues returned from a recruitment trip to a major university, and told her, “The women are not that bright, and come across as inferior to the male candidates.”

Miller said, “It’s not that they were inferior. They were not prepared to present themselves in the way required by the investment banking industry.” For example, she said, women are not adept at “tooting our own horn. And analysts need to talk about what they did” to advance. She continued, “The way we socialize girls is not in alignment with business needs.”

“How could we support girls and young women to be prepared? How could we help them navigate existing organizations? We need to help build a critical mass of women, which would enable them to still be authentic and still be themselves, but be successful.” She continued, “We need to be able to integrate women’s work style with men’s style.”

The Investment Banking Internship Program

In addition to providing K-12 programming, Miller said, “We partner with local universities; top engineering, math, science, and women’s schools.” The Athena Collaborative’s programming aims to help women “hit the ground running” once they enter the business arena. The organization leads an internship program for women in investment banking, which includes training, mentoring, and coaching.

And the interns have given the program rave reviews. “I’ve seen the change in the women leaving the program,” said Miller. When they begin, she said, “they’re brilliant, but nervous. I’ve seen them walk out confident and ready to get the jobs.”

Additionally, she said, many of the interns have enthusiastically continued to be part of the organization after completing the program. And, “We’re launching a junior board this year that will shadow the regular board of directors.”

The Athena Collaborative also works to help the interns develop what Miller calls their “executive presence.” She said that women often strive to make an impact in the world, rather than on competing for money – which is obviously an important part of the investment banking business. An upcoming event will have each of the interns give a speech in front of a large group, envisioning that they are attending their retirement party. Each speech will detail the difference the women made in the world, and how they achieved it. The exercise is intended to be part speech training and part reminder to the interns of the material aspect of ambition.

One of the issues Miller comes up against is the idea that women are not risk takers – which can prevent them from advancing in the business field. She said, “I see them as risk takers, I think women are judicious risk takers. …We could do more to prepare them to take organizational risk.”

One way to work toward this, she said, is getting more girls into team sports. “To compete [against each other] is something boys are more socialized to do. Girls are often competing against a standard of perfection – which impacts a sense of winning versus losing, and risk taking.”

Getting Involved with the Athena Collaborative

“We would love people to join us,” Miller said. “We are always looking for bankers and traders, people in front office roles to help select, train, and coach the interns for short time periods.” She said that that while interactions may be brief, they are meaningful – meaning participating in short mentoring sessions, sitting on question and answer panels, attending mocktail parties, etc.

She said, “We want them to be confident networkers. We are providing real experience. The way you learn is through practice.”

To get involved, contact the Athena Collaborative at 212-551-1023 or info@athenacollaborative.org.