Q1. What or who inspired you to work in investing?

I started my career as an actuarial consultant advising insurance companies on capital management, regulatory change and mergers and acquisitions. The core focus then was on the liability side of the balance sheet, but I was always drawn to the asset side - I ended up moving to an investment bank to focus on this.

Q2. What do you think the future looks like for women in investing? What would you like to see?

The future should look the same for all, regardless of gender. Change is happening but too slowly. We need more flexibility, to encourage women who have had career breaks to return to the business and more term-time contracts, but fundamentally we need more female senior role models as this will encourage more women to come into and remain within the industry. Creating roles around the talent you have instead of backfilling existing roles with similar people will be critical.

Q3. What is your attitude to investment risk?

Taking risk is how you earn additional returns for your customers. The key is to have great risk management, including embedding environment, social and governance risk factors into all investment decisions across the company. That way we can be sure we are taking the risks we want to take and get rewarded for, while avoiding those we don’t want.

Q4. If you had a superpower, what would it be?

I’d like the ability to read minds. Our industry is still very much a people business and I hope it stays that way. Being able to fully understand what people think about different issues would remove so much bureaucracy and wasted time – debates would then be focused about the real differences of opinions.

Q5. Tell us your motto or if you don’t live by one, why not?

Live for today and tomorrow – you can’t changethe past so don’t dwell on it.