EdenTree's Patel: Industries must do more to encourage gender diversity

Deep soul searching among companies required

Fund managers need to actively encourage the companies they invest in to look beyond financial metrics and focus on employee diversity and wellbeing, according to EdenTree's Ketan Patel, who said many smaller companies are lagging their larger peers in this area due to fewer resources.

The manager, who co-runs EdenTree's Amity UK, Amity Global Equity and UK Equity Growth funds, said it is vital to ask firms "challenging questions" to determine their diversity and governance credentials before deciding to invest in them, in order to facilitate positive change. Diversity Blog: 'Noticeable slowdown' in growth rate of female directorships - MSCI research "If you think of the [FTSE] AIM index, it is not necessarily the best quality index in the world but is home to some of the fastest growing UK companies, so the choice here is good," he explained. "However, in terms ...