You Go Girl! (via Flickr)

It’s been a mystery, until now.  The Hedge Fund Journal in partnership with Price- WaterhouseCoopers has revealed the Top 50 Women in Hedge Funds.  I wrote an article several months ago entitled “Should You Hire a Woman To Manage Your Money ” when I first learned of the news that from the years 2000 through 2009, while all hedge funds were up 6% on average, those run by women were up 9%.   In 2008, all mutual funds dropped 19% while those run by women were down less than 10%.  I’ll say it again, those numbers are compelling!

The most amazing statistic according to the Hedge Fund Journal is that women manage an estimated 3% slice of the $1.5 trillion invested in hedge funds, according to Hedge Fund Journal.

You can read a short overview about the release on the FINS website, an extension of the Wall Street Journal for those in the financial services industry.

In addition you can download the pdf :  Top 50 Women in Hedge Funds.

My favorite on the list?  Karen Finerman.  You might recognize her name because she appears on CNBC’s Fast Money .  Finerman is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Metropolitan Capital Advisors in New York.  She’s smart, successful, articulate, and can hold her own on the fast-paced technical investment show.  This woman does it all.  She sits on the board of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, manages a successful hedge fund, appears as a tv personality almost daily, and did I mention that she has two sets of twins???  Wow.  She’s a testament to success for aspiring women in finance!

A recent study from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago found that testosterone is potentially linked to risk-taking.  The higher the level of testosterone, the more risk one is willing to take.  I think some risk is certainly healthy and frankly I would have never made it on Wall Street without engaging in career risk.  In my first Wall Street job interview I found myself begging for a chance to prove that I could be successful.  Luckily someone gave me that chance.  At that time, it was 1995 and I was a high school teacher making $25,000 a year.

The National Council for Research on Women has released a new report entitled Women in Fund Management: A Road Map for Achieving Critical Mass – and Why it Matters which highlights the under-representation of women in the historically male-dominated spaces of fund management and financial services.  Jacki Zehner, a Goldman Sachs partner and the youngest woman to achieve that status was recently profiled on the CBS Evening News story entitled “Does Wall Street Need More Women?” .   Her foundation is a sponsor of the newly released report.  Read about Jackie’s commentary on the CBS News Story on her personal blog, Purse Pundit.   She is truly paving the way for women in financial services and it is very exciting to see!

Some of the highlights?  From the years 2000 through 2009, while all hedge funds were up 6% on average, those run by women were up 9%.   In 2008, all mutual funds dropped 19% while those run by women were down less than 10%.  These numbers are compelling and cannot be ignored.

It appears that women are more measured in their risk taking, they tend to collaborate more, and some would even say they are not driven by their egos (nor are many men).  Rather, they keep the ego in check, and can balance out teams and boards if given the opportunities.  I’ve witnessed this first-hand.  Women are very well suited to make smart financial decisions and prudently manage the risks involved.  The women fund managers who have been successful deserve to be recognized and it is exciting to see these types of stories being brought to the public eye.