Yeah. Mhm. Welcome to asset TVs. Women in the Finance Advancement of Women in investing with me jo ann bain. Um Today I'm joined by two very impressive woman namely Sonia Saunderson, chief investment officer of momentum investments. Sonia has a bachelor of science in mathematics and computer science from Northwest University. From there she competed to be calm and become honors in Economics and statistics. She completed her masters in commerce in statistics and economics and various actuarial subjects before pursuing a career in the investment industry. She lectured actual science and statistics and the Northwest University School for business mathematics and informatics. Before joining the industry, She has 18 years experience in the industry and joined a group related company of momentum in 1999 as an actual assistant doing asset and liability modeling with the company's defined benefit of retirement fund clients. Her various roles included research analyst, head of research, head of product development and deputy chief investment officer before being promoted to chief investment officer in 2000 and 10, a momentum outcome based solutions, momentum outcome based solutions was incorporated into momentum investments, where she is now the chief investment officer. She has extensive experience and constructing gold based outcomes for clients as well as portfolio construction, risk management, investment manager, selection and portfolio manager in general. Snare Dlamini, director of institutional business at Old mutual Investment Group. She obtained her honours degree in business science from the University of Cape Town and also completed the program in investment and analysis and portfolio management to you lisa, followed on by managing and leading people's business school, Her career and asset management spans over 13 years where she started a business development at great and was responsible for growing assets under management across hedge funds, private equity And Mezzanine strategies. She then moved into traditional asset management space in 2011 and has worked at Athena Capital s. Comm pension and provident Fund as well as our gone prior to joining of mutual investment. She was the acting head of institutional distribution at Absa wealth and Investment Management. She joins old mutual investment group as a client director in 2019, overseeing a portfolio institutional clients and s. A market. And if that's not enough, she is currently studying towards a Master's in philosophy and inclusive innovation at the U. C. T. Graduate School of Business. Welcome both of you and I'm very very pleased to have you both on this panel. Your CBS are impressive but I don't even think are impressive as woman. I just think they're impressive. So, thank you so much for joining me, sonia, I'm gonna kick off with you. This is an advancement of women in the industry. How would you describe the journey that led you to where you are today, Joanne? I I had an interesting journey and it never stops. I mean that journey is still continuing. Right, so never, never at the whole moment in financial services. I think you've given a bit of my academic background and when I came from and so forth. I think what's really clear about my journey for me is that it's been one of hard work and smart work. You know, I didn't just fall into promotions and different positions and different companies all the time. It's certainly for me has been one where you get the expected resultant benefit if you work hard. So I was very fortunate that I grew up in a, in a household where my parents never made me felt limited as a woman. I had the same opportunities and the the same responsibilities as my brothers did and certainly was expected to excel just as much as them. And in fact talking about women in financial services as much as my journey is something that I'm very proud of. I think we also need to recognize that the playing field nowadays is a lot more of an even playing field for women. I think there's lots of opportunities for women to make a difference. I think um purely experience and competence based promotions are happening all the time and I think we need to be as a, as an industry celebrating what women bring to the financial services industry. I think we bring that tremendous lot and that's certainly been part of my journey is to differentiate a little bit what I bring, rely on my skill set work hard, but to make an impact on the industry, it's in your experience, your journey. What's that been like thanks to and I think a lot of what Sonia just mentioned actually resonates with with me as well, particularly on the hard work. So what I would say about my journey is that it has been a challenging one. Um you obviously, you know, would know that this is a male dominated industry, not only in terms of the colleagues that we work with, but also in terms of the clients that we have to deal with. So, you know, boards of trustees of retirement funds, which are the ones that I generally deal with um tend to be male dominated as well, and it comes with its own complexities. So it's been challenging. Um it's also been, I think as my career has progressed a bit of a lonely journey, I might add. Um but it's encouraging to see that there are more opportunities for women, things are getting better, I think when young people, you know, when they asked me, you know, what does it take? I always just say put your head down and work, nothing beats excellence. And in fact, excellence for me is your best defense against any any sort of prejudice. Um and so I've really spent a lot of time just putting my head down and working um and and it's actually been altogether fulfilling, very fulfilling journey. We're in a very interesting and dynamic space. So I've enjoyed the ride despite the challenges that that I've had to face? But do you think those challenges are because you're working with men or just do you think finances difficult. Industry full stop? What do you think those challenges are? What industry inherently has somewhat of an exclusionary culture? I'll give you a very simple example. Um The way that male colleagues interact or bond is not only in the office. Um there's also finding that happens outside of the office, but a lot of those activities are not necessarily ones that you would be invited to um as a as a female colleague for various reasons. Um So, so those are some of the some of the things that we face. Um but challenges also brought you as a person. Um and I believe that they make you a good person. Okay, sonya, you talked about growing up and not being treated differently to your brother's. What sort of challenges have you experienced in the finance industry? Yeah, I think there's lots of research challenges, a lot of things that you can observe around you. But to be honest, I've been I feel like I'm in a very fortunate position that although I recognize that males and females are different and I certainly do recognize, I think you have to be blind, You have to obviously not see that there still is a difference between men and and women in the industry. I mean 90% the recent study that city wire that 90% of portfolios managed in South Africa are managed by men. So, I mean you have to be blind not to see those things and experience those things and I think you always will get cultural preferential differences between men and women just by nature of who we are. But I certainly have had a bit of a different journey. It feels to me like I've been in a fortunate position where men have been great mentors to me. Men have opened doors to me. Men have been friends to me. I mean I managed an investment team that's that's got tremendous men and that they also like to empower women. So although the statistics say something different and we need to recognize that is still a challenge, I think we also need to move the narrative for a little bit to say that we as women bring something different to the type of I don't think we always need to say, well, there's a woman that succeeded in something um look how amazing the senior position is that she's in. I mean you don't typically say that about a man. All right. It's just well, yes, so and so and this is what he's saying and this is what he's thinking. You don't have to point out that he's a man, but we do do that when it's a woman. So to some extent, I think we we tend to sometimes put ourselves almost in a in a position where we disadvantaged and and although there are certain challenges and I'm not definitely not trying to make light of those, I do think we bring something different to the table and we need to change the narrative because my experience has been that that some of my greatest supporters, helpers, advisors, wise counsel has been men and in fact a lot of women that I've experienced in the workplace are a little bit more difficult. You know, they don't always like to share the limelight and I think about it differently. So I think my journey maybe has been a little bit more different than than what's name was explaining just now, but I certainly recognize there are a lot of those challenges. So some of my obstacles has really been more that I generally tend to think I'm not good enough. I should do more. Do I do that because I'm just a woman or do I just do that because of my people pleaser. Um, so I think to take on a lot more work and want to impress people more and it does get to a point where you do more than you actually should and that sustainable. So I certainly have some of those obstacles. Um, I think sometimes you're in a room as a strong woman and you regard it as being bossy, you know, you you too aggressive for you too bossy when, when a man is in the room and he has strong opinions about something, it's almost expected. It's just a good leader. So I think we sometimes have some of those challenges. I've certainly experienced some of that myself and you you therefore as a woman, I think learn a little bit of the skills that makes you a little bit of a chameleon, you know, in, in some meetings, use a strong bossy person in other meetings, you know, that you have to hang back a little bit and be a little bit more subtle about it. So I think that's a skill that women have learned over time in the, in the business field. Okay, so you bring up a really good point, say I'll get you to now, you know, talking about women think differently and that their term at cognitive diversity gotta love the term, but but basically saying we think differently. So can you have examples of where you thought differently or you've done something differently? We have added to the conversations. It's not just a let's hire a woman, but there's actually some skills that women bring to the table that are different. No, absolutely. And um, I think what's what's important to highlight. Um, and what I always say, it's not about proving that women are better or worse than men. And I know often a lot of the studies will say, you know, women are better investors, that's not the kind of narrative that I sort of follow. For me it's more around diversity thinking and the value of diverse thinking and that we do bring in different views and you know, the clients that we deal with, our diverse the people that we deal with a stakeholders are diverse. So you can only make better decisions when you when you you are diverse as as a team. Um and as people in a business. Um and so and so for me I believe that any of you that I bring to the table um is a view that adds to the total group thinking rather than that my view is superior because I'm a woman. Okay, so can you give me some examples where you've said something differently or seen something differently to sort of group think that that you brought to the table because it does anything come to mind? Um There's a few examples. I mean the one is probably in my in my role as the chairperson of the Employment Equity and diversity forum. So I I met that from 2020 to 2021 at Old Mutual Investment Group and now I'm also part of the transformation committee and um there's a lot of topics that we discuss around how we run the business as a management team. But if I just give you an example of let's take um and an advert or a presentation, sometimes the marketing team will put forward um you know, a presentation with certain imagery or if it's one of our publications for example, but that imagery hasn't taken into account that we live in a in a diverse South africa and you end up having images of only one type of demographic as an example. Um And that's really just I suppose a basic one, but I think across all key investment decisions is definitely diversity of thinking that I and others going to the table and that's incredibly important. So sonia, again, a live example of diverse thinking in terms of you interview fund managers a lot of the time. What do you see differently to say your male colleagues when you're interviewing people? Yeah, I think women can sometimes look for different qualities in in fund managers. The main can and certainly some of the trains that I've seen is that women is typically more in a position that they're willing to admit they made a mistake there a little bit more willing to say maybe I learned a lesson out of the covid period in my portfolio didn't do so well. And yes, the lesson I learned, they were willing to be more uh introspective. They're willing to share that more with people. And I think from from our manager research perspective we certainly believe that you invest in fund managers that are strong. They must have conviction. I believe in something but they're not dogmatic. And I think sometimes uh our male counterparts tend to be a little bit in that direction. They tend to be a little bit more dogmatic, whereas women tend to be more able to reflect and adapt and also share that more openly. So I think men as a more inherently a pride about them that they don't want to admit that and therefore they are also not as introspective, willing to adapt and willing to learn. So from a fund management perspective, we certainly look for those qualities and I mean it is a bit of a generalization of course to say men do this and women don't do it, but on average, I would say women are typically more inclined to do it and that actually helps them a lot from a fund management perspective. What's that old saying, sonia? What's the point of the mind if you can't change it? I think women, again, a massive generalization are probably better admitting when they've been wrong and better admitting changing their minds. I do think that is a generalization that does apply in this industry. But just back to your other earlier point, you said there's so few female fund managers in South africa. Why do you think that is? Yeah, I think there's a couple of reasons, a couple of obstacles. I mean, I read a fascinating article that Mackenzie did, actually a year or two old already, but where they were talking about things that I certainly recognize and things that I've seen in my career. The first one being a bit of an ambition gap. I do think that women tend to not necessarily have the same ambitions as men. Either they're not interested in a particular position or their work life balance is a little bit more important to them or they want to have kids as we know, um often is quoted as one of the reasons why women perform differently. I don't think that needs to be an excuse by the way. I do think that you can still perform very well, but often women shy away from the pressure they quoted to say they don't want the politics with a certain position. So from an ambitious perspective or an ambition perspective, they don't want to necessarily follow the same path. And that obviously is also a bit self perpetuating, right? So if if a young woman is looking at our industry and they don't see themselves reflected in positions, then they tend to not want to also go in the industry into the industry. So they like to see themselves in positions, then there's obviously also confidence issues. I do think that that on average women fear failure a little bit more and I think that's something that we can help each other with men and women by the way. Um I think it takes women a little bit longer to look at a position or look to someone in a position to say, but hang on a second, I can also do that, I can do that job, you know, so, so there's definitely something in terms of a confidence gap sometimes, but I actually think the biggest reason for the statistics that we see is is purely a lack of sponsorship. So again, a fascinating area where we can talk for a long time, but we know that mentorship and help advice helps you in in a business, right? You learn from others, you bounce ideas of others and so forth. You go through tough periods, you need someone to reflect with and to put you on the right path again. So to have someone that helps you, all of us have ups and downs. But when you've got it down to say, well it's just it down you haven't failed. It's just the down you will have an up again I think is golden and a lot of women unfortunately don't have that in the work environment. Um what's very interesting is senior woman tend to say that if you don't have a sponsor, you're likely not to be successful in a business world. Whereas junior women believes it's purely teamwork and hard work and so forth. So that already tells you that to make it, you need to make sure that you surround yourself with the right people and that you have sponsorship that you know, that also helps and guide you along in your career. Another, just one thing I wanted to mention another fascinating thing is that women tends to cultivate networks of mostly women, but they're also sometimes have a balance between men and women as the network that they work with and socialize with in a work context, but men are unashamedly building networks of men. I mean, they only really build networks with women if it's absolutely necessary. So if the business world and the financial services industry South Africa and globally for that matter, already dominated by men, why on earth would you just want to build a network that you feed off that's only made up of women because it's easier for you to talk to them. So I think that's another reason that what what women can learn from is to build networks that are a little bit smarter and also helps them along in their career. There's a lot to digest their snare. You also mentioned earlier that when you started your journey that you're dealing mostly with men, why do you think, what's your opinion that why that this industry is so dominated by men? Still? Yeah, I think I have I think maybe slightly different views. So, for me, firstly, I would like to I think state that for for me, I think I've been very fortunate to have had male sponsors who have really assisted in progressing my career and it absolutely might not have been possible without their help, but I do acknowledge that that's very rare. I do acknowledge that I am privileged and the question that I tend to then ask myself, how can I use that privilege to facilitate better equality for some women who are not as fortunate. Um, so I definitely, you know, I carry that privilege that I've got and I think I have, we all have a responsibility to do something different and there's a lack of diversity in our industry, particularly in investment teams, but the people who are hiring into these businesses and into these teams tend to primarily remain. And so I sometimes feel challenged when, you know, these questions are being asked that it's almost being placed on women, that women need to do something different in order to increase diversity in this industry. The people who are hiring are primarily men. Um, and so I think that it doesn't rest only with us to make a difference. We think the men in our businesses need to become a lot more conscious around diversity issues. I think when it comes to recruitment, um you know, just thoughts around unconscious biases and that type of training, I think becomes very important. I think questions around the culture in the business, you know, do you have a culture that is inclusive and that facilitate the progress of women? I mean, I personally, and somebody you can fit me into any room and I tend to, you know, regardless of who the individuals are are and how they look. That's just my my nature, but not all women are like that when it comes to things like raising our families, you know, men, um you know, the responsibility abilities tend to be disproportionate um in homes and so um you know, I think businesses need to think a lot more around um flexibility. Um and they need to think a lot more around, you know, when women have gone on maternity leave and such, do they, are they able to integrate well back into into those businesses? Another key area that I think is a big gap is um in new talent development, what you find in our industry and I think it's actually a general South african things that there's there's recycling. Um sorry, it's a terrible word to use, but it is recycling and so what you find is I'll give you an example when you look at the webinars that take place during women's month, you can find one woman in, you know, 345 webinars. Um And and that also speaks to a lack of diversity because there's so few senior woman um in our industry. And so when it comes to recruiting at university level, um investing in graduates that can then be in an injection into the talent pool in our in our industry. I think that that's very important. Um So there's a number of aspects, I think it's very key for us to, you know, push back to our male colleagues, of which a lot of them I believe are committed to diversity, but I think we really need to partner with men in changing the picture. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm hearing from both of you is that both of you tell me that you've never really felt it, that you both kind of you can be in any room and be comfortable. Do you think maybe a lot of this male female issues starts at home that you know, if you're brought up in a home where men and women are equal, I think relying on the business world to always fix these issues is sometimes unappealing to me. I think you if the fact that youtube woman have advanced your careers through your own blood, sweat and tears, but also never believing you were different. I think it's a large part of it, but but I get that there are a lot of women who are still struggling and expect this whole role model argument. Do you why are you doing a momentum sonia to kind of help the advancement of women within momentum? I think there's a lot you can do is any corporate and as any individual as well. So I think the corporate world needs to reflect a little bit and almost three brand themselves as a female friendly industry, um we are indeed doing a lot. I mean I don't know if you have, you know, I'm I'm really proud of the fact that the company I work for has a particular drive to get senior women into the company and have been very successful in creating that diversity. And I think more importantly, so inclusivity and an example of that that you may have seen is that, uh, in the month of august we flipped the GM in momentum to a double you. So they need to momentum instead of momentum. Um, and I cannot tell you the amount of goodwill that has created with staff internally with our clients reactions that we get on social media. Um, also for for me, as a senior female in the company to feel part of that. So I think we certainly as an industry need to rebrand a little bit, I think women in senior positions and men, but I mean just for a second while on a woman talking about it from a woman's perspective, I think senior women has certainly got a role to play. You sit in meetings, you hear the conversations, you're part of the decision making. I think you can make a concerted effort to attract women in clever ways. All right. I think we need to make sure that we take visible action and that we walk the talk, but we don't just talk about something that needs to change, but we do nothing about it. Um, I do think that it's important to realize that the consumer, the client out there is asking for diversity and inclusivity and therefore they're looking at a company they invest with a company where they get something similar. Um, again, it is work that I saw in the UK, but where they looked at facial recognition of how males and females respond to advertisements and talking a little bit to sneeze pond earlier. Sometimes women look at these asset management companies and how they advertise their portfolios on products and services and they put off there completely put off, they're not interested in pursuing it. It actually affects their savings patterns because they don't see themselves reflected in the successes that's sketched and the path that sketch. So I think there's a lot, you know, advertising in the way we portray ourselves that we can do to to create more of that inclusivity snake have made a very valid point about the flexibility. I think you can create a lot more of a flexible environment and what a brilliant time of the covert for us to in fact do that right? Because our industry learned that working from home and having a more flexible environment does not necessarily need to affect productivity. So I think that's another one. And then for me it's really just not being faked. I mean if if I think about it from my own perspective to just promote women for the sake of diversity is also not for me the responsible thing to do. So we also need to set targets, make sure that your old women accountable to also deliver as equally as strongly as men because then you're actually helping them as opposed to just giving them a free boss. I think there's a lot that senior woman and us as an industry can do and that we are already doing now. I think Sonia cover a lot of those topics really well, but I'd like to hear from your point of view, what are you doing to promote royal models to get young girls into the industry to say I'm going to study, I'm going to come and do a B. Com because I want to go into finance. What is old Mutual and what are you doing to promote women in the industry? Yeah, so I mean my my work in the industry around increasing diversity is very much left to the business um that I work for. So I mean, an example of what I was talking about about injecting into our talent pool is through our sort of uh in Fund A Trust, which is our adversary program where we get um students from university who where we're not only pay for their school fees, but we also ensure that there's very, very much um you know, some mentorship that they get to enjoy throughout the duration of their degrees and uh to that end, I mean I've kind of sat with these young people and spoken to them about my journey where they've gotten to ask me questions and I'm not the only one, there's various professionals around our business who get the opportunity to do that. Um We also have various kind of graduate programs which which are also very useful in injecting into our talent pool. Another aspect that's really important as I mentioned earlier is the Employment equity and diversity forum where, I mean I was part of um of the team that was in fact the forum still exists, I just no longer part of it. I was the chairman of that where we drove a lot of um kind of policy discussions and philosophical discussion um as well as the hard numbers around employment equity and inclusivity, including um you know, the role of women in the business. I'm also now the transformation committee where we have a very deliberate effort around increasing women leaders in our business as well as increasing women investment decision makers. We always say that, you know, investment management is at the core of our business is the engine. And so when we don't have women in investment decision making roles, then kind of saying women are not are not good enough to be in the engine of the business. And so and so that's very important, very deliberate efforts around that. And I think another aspect that's really important is around are responsible investment program, um where we also drive corporate transformation including gender diversity. And what that happens is that basically the businesses, the companies in which we invest on behalf of our clients which are J. C. Listed companies also have management teams also have employees and so what are responsible investment team does is that they engage those companies around various issues around the environment, social issues as well as governance. And um we have a very strong drive towards um you know, engaging companies on gender diversity. So and and to that end we've got various examples where we've engaged the management of these J. C. With the companies to ensure that they are implementing diversity um diversity principles and policies. Um And we've also been gathering a lot of data around this which is also useful just in giving our clients information around how they're investing and where they're investing and what are the gender dynamics in places where they are putting their money? So that's some of the work that we're doing. Um attribute investment group sonia. Just going back to snares earlier comment of recycling, which I think is a really interesting issue. Do you think the problem in the industry is not so much that we're not trying to hire woman but not enough woman are stepping up to say I want to be hired. And it's back to your whole issue about confidence. How do we get women to say I'm a woman, hear me roar. I can do this job. How do we get young talent coming to the industry and not being scared of this industry? Yeah, I think it really does start at the entry level. Right. So um often you see and I mean we certainly see a lot of it at entry level. It's the equal amount of female and males or at least more imbalance, let's call it that that enter the workforce. So everything up to the point where the end of the work force seems to be going well, but I do think it's the promotional process after that and the ambition after that, and the custodianship, the safeguarding, the advice, the grooming of someone that I do think is actually important and where we are actually missing a trick. I think some of the initiatives that I can maybe proposed, I mean we all earlier said something to the extent that we know women are good investors, but do we make enough of it, you know, do we actually show role models to our youngsters for them to see? Well, there's someone that looks like me, that things like me that comes from the environment that I'm in and I can be just as successful as that person. I mean, there are so many stats in research and things out there, it confirms that women are very capable of doing the job. They just need to have the opportunity and the confidence to get there. So I would say we need to invest in more campaigns like that. I think we need to have more conversations like these, where these men in the group, you know, let's let the men talk about how they create women diversity. Let's let's ask them and they often have very good ideas and and and they often want to do that as well. Um I think we need to be a little bit more inclusive from that perspective as well and make them part of that journey. Um, I think there's a lot of the campaigning and things that we talked about, more initiatives that you can do that actually attract women. But I think it's as simple as actually just investing your time and your effort in creating that path for women that's going to make them ultimately successful. And that comes from a individual perspective. You know, you yourself putting time into people to do that, but also from a company perspective that you put the right resources and infrastructure behind, then I'm hearing create role models and that's part, you know, so we start off equal the beginning of the journey that the women then leave because they don't have enough role models to follow or mentorship programs. I think we've talked a lot about investing, but what about men and women who save for the future? And we know that women outlive men or that's what the statistics tell us. Why do women not save enough? Why do they rely on their husbands look after them? Why is this why do they not step up to the plate? So it's in your experience, why is it men seem to make the decisions about the household and where the money is spent and where it's saved. Yeah, I mean, I think I am similar to sonia and that I also grew up in a home where there was there was equality. Um and uh and I feel I feel very fortunate. And so when it comes to the home front a bit challenging for me to to answer other than to say that um it's the system of patriarchy which which is so much bigger than investment management, it's so much bigger. Um then, you know, this conversation or any conversation, it's a systemic issue. Um but when it comes to, you know what you mentioned earlier about women living longer and not saving enough, um I think at the core of it is um the issue of pay gaps um and as long as women are not getting paid um you know, equally for the same work as men, it's very challenging for them to have, you know, personal financial sustainability. Um that's the one I also read um in one of the research reports. Um I think it might have been city wire as well and insane statistic that to get to gender parity in the asset management industry, it would take another 194 years at the current rate, which is just bizarre for me. And it says that the hard numbers need to change so we can have all the conversations um all the discussions, but at the end of the day, the hard numbers need to change because we know that intellectually women are not inferior too many. So the gender, the gender parity should actually be achieved a lot sooner than the other issue that we've got. Another statistic that uh in fact, I'm not gonna quote the exact number, but I also saw in another report that The majority and I'm talking over 70% of South African Children are living without their fathers, so they're not living without their fathers. It means they're living with their mothers. And you then see that the, you know, responsibility of child rearing as well as um just the financial aspect of parenting are resting squarely on women. And this is, for me very oppressive and again, makes it very difficult for women to be able to to progress and and be financially sustainable as individuals. Um and then another element which I think is quite key is just education, you know, financial education around how to invest. I think there's a massive role for the asset management industry to play in this regard. Um and the education of women in general um is also is also very critical, um but there's a lot working against women. Um but it also presents a massive opportunity for us to do something different. Another perspective, but sort of along the same track that's what's near just mentioned is that women tend to exit the workforce to have Children, right? Um and I mean, we know that that's particularly particularly true for women retiring now. So to put that into perspective if we think about a mother that's worked for five years and she now wants to have a child and she takes another five years off to raise them into being a toddler or you know, until she feels he's going to high school or whenever. Um but let's say that's roughly 10 years that she's losing out of a 35 year period to accumulate wealth. I mean that's huge. Your 1st 10 years actually contribute roughly half of your savings to get to retirement one day. So naturally by being a mother and a caretaker. And I mean that's biological, right? That's that's not something that we can change. Women tend to be more at risk to lose life savings and therefore they become more dependent on me. So I do think there's also some statistics and logic behind it that we also need to keep in mind. I mean that's why it's so important for women to be able to preserve their savings so that their money can start working for them early enough and they don't lose out on a critical period of compound interest towards one day accumulating enough wealth for themselves. Um And we also need to recognize that because women live longer annuity rates are higher. So the tension is typically lower because obviously need to live for a longer period and get money from the insurance from that perspective. So the key issue is that women are leaving the workforce too early. We need to make sure that women stay in the workforce longer or they'll need to chip in more than men to make sure that they have the same amount of wealth accumulated or they will always dependent on someone else financially. Um, so I think there's a, there's a real independence long to that, that also requires the educational aspect that Snow was just talking about the old fashioned thinking that women retire typically earlier than men is wrong. He should base your retirement age on how long you are likely to live after that and therefore women should actually work a little bit longer than men. And our industry then also don't lose the critical skills that that women have at that point in time. I'm also hearing that when men go to Financial Advisor, I think the woman should come along too because it's the collective income and I a Financial advisor myself. I'm always fascinated how many times have a meeting with men on their own and you know, if the woman has given up work to have Children, for instance, that's their collective money, I think I think women should step up to the plate though and be more involved as well because, you know, a lot of this also comes from women themselves. You can't keep relying on other people to make your life easier. You've also got to step up to the plate yourself. Okay, this has been absolutely fascinating. I think what I've heard today is a lot of this journey starts at home. So you two have been clearly very privileged and lucky to come from parents that believe men and women are equal from the get go. But but I'm also hearing that mental ship is massively important this industry. So you two have been fine, but there's a lot of women who have never been mentored and we're gonna get more women in the industry and even more the likes of Youtube to encourage women to join. And I think after today, hopefully they have listened to you and realized they can do it. They just have the confidence. So thanks to both of you, have thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks to and thanks sonia. Um Yeah. Mhm. Yeah.