Superwoman’s quest to catch new investors
CITY ‘superwoman’ Helena Morrissey has been enlisted to help solve Britain’s pensions and savings worries. The 50-year- old mother of nine ( pic
tured) has been hired by Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) on an undisclosed salary in the newly created role of head of personal investing.
She will lead a team trying to encourage and support younger people and women to save and invest their money amid fears that many people are not doing enough to prepare for retirement.
Influential figure Morrissey shocked the City last year with her sudden departure after 15 years in charge of Newton Investment Management in search of a ‘ more meaningful’ career. She is now hoping to help individuals access pensions and other saving services quicker and easier.
The Cambridge graduate and gender equality campaigner said: ‘I wanted a role where I could make a real difference to how the industry engages with its customers.
‘LGIM has the potential to be not just a market leader in this space but to develop a genuinely different approach.
‘We are looking forward to building a savings business with strong and direct connections with our customers, including those who have never really thought about investing before or find existing offerings off-putting. We are look- ing to get to the point where we are all using technology to access funds in the same way that we use Amazon to access books. Our focus will be on building a service, not a sales process.’ Experts have warned that most workers and families are not saving enough for a comfortable retirement, particularly given the decline in final salary pension schemes. LGIM is the UK’s biggest asset manager, with £842bn on its books, and looks after the workplace pensions of more than two million people. Dubbed the ‘ billion- dollar babe’ due to her influence and the £51bn of assets under her management while at Newton, Morrissey has been a leading campaigner for getting more women into top jobs at City firms.
Married to former financial journalist Richard Morrissey, she had her first child, Fitz, when she was 25 and has been dubbed superwoman after being made Newton’s chief executive at 35.
In 2010 she founded the 30% Club, which is calling for better representation of women on corporate boards. Prime Minister Theresa May spoke at its first major event while home secretary in 2011.
Elaborating on her hopes to get more woman to invest, Morrissey said: ‘All the research shows – and it resonates with me – that women tend to be more goal- orientated when it comes to money.
‘Pay off the mortgage, put a child through school. While men on average tend to want to make money.’
Morrissey, who had argued the UK could do well outside of the EU, told the Mail: ‘People talk about it as a “divorce” but I am trying to talk about it as moving house. You can just get on with enjoying your new views and growing into your new space.’
She is also writing a book, A Good Time To Be A Girl: How To Succeed In A Changing World. It is due to be published by Harper Collins.