#124: Investing with a gender lens with Marypat Smucker

Marypat Thenell Smucker, CFA, MA Economics, MS Finance, is Co-Founder and Principal of Parallelle Finance. She has published a range of research pieces on sustainable and gender lens investing, including Parallelle’s in-depth quarterly reports on sustainable investing and women in the global workplace. Her work has been featured on the CFA Institute's Enterprising Investor site. She has contributed to sustainable investing sites and provided numerous media quotes on gender lens investing. Prior to co-founding Parallelle, Marypat was a consultant in investment communications and editorial services for global asset management firms. She began her consultancy following a role as Managing Editor of institutional investment communications at T. Rowe Price. Before that Marypat worked in transaction services for KPMG. She began her finance career as an analyst at Emerging Markets Partnership, a firm which managed the first private equity funds for emerging markets infrastructure.Parallelle Finance is a leading provider of research on sustainable and gender equality-focused investing. The firm consults globally on sustainable and gender lens investing. Parallelle recently authored Gender Bonds: A Toolkit for the Design and Issuance of Gender Bonds in Africa, published in early 2024 by Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa. Gender bonds are positioned for growth in global fixed income markets, driven by high growth in women-owned businesses and ongoing funding gaps. In addition, Parallelle provides investment advisory services to U.S. investors and an analysis tool for U.S. and global investors to score public and private investments with an equality lens. We cover the following in our conversation: What is gender lens investing? Market update Gender bonds The gender lens scorecard Investing in gender equality Women in leadership Directing capital to gender lens funds ***