'Girls Who Invest' Empowers Young Women to Get Into Finance
With only 1.1% of women and minorities running the asset management industry's $71.4 trillion in assets, the field is lacking diversity. Girls Who Invest, a non-profit organization, is using empowerment to try to change that. Seema Hingorani, Founder of Girls Who Invest, joined us at the New York Stock Exchange to share why she feels it is important to encourage young women to pursue careers in asset management.
Girls Who Invest is working towards the goal of getting 30% of investable assets managed by women by 2030. Hingorani says the lack of diversity is a pipeline problem. She adds that young women don’t even know about the industry and how impactful and rewarding it can be. Hingorani said there has been a cloud over the industry since the 2008 financial crisis. To reach the next generation of women, Girls Who Invest designed a 10-week summer program for college students.
President Trump's immigration policies have put up a roadblock to Girls Who Invest's international growth, Hingorani says. Girls Who Invest accepted fewer international students in 2017 than last year because several women struggled to obtain work visas. She says the policies hurt the talent pool because talented women aren’t getting interviews due to the fact they don’t have visas.
Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, joins Cheddar News to discuss how chatbots can help prevent eating disorders and the research that uncovered these findings.
Kevin Hochman, president of KFC in the United States, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company's nationwide launch of plant-based chicken in collaboration with Beyond Meat. With the rise of healthier options and people committing to new dieting regimens at the top of the new year, Hochman said it was the perfect time to launch its plant-based chicken.
Markets closed the day mixed, and well off their lows of the day following a market meltdown earlier in the session. The Nasdaq staged a comeback late in the day, even amid ongoing worries about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. Doug Flynn, certified financial planner and co-founder of Flynn Zito Capito, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the markets' close and what's driving the major indexes.
Two companies recently announced a new partnership aimed at addressing the growing demand to borrow against crypto - digital assets capital markets firm CrossTower is partnering with commercial bank, BankProv. The companies are launching a crypto lending platform that will allow Bitcoin miners to receive loans to invest in crypto mining equipment. The companies say the program also addresses the difficulty of breaking into crypto mining due to the high cost. CrossTower research analyst Martin Gaspar joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
