MILAN – For years, world finance has been pushing to promote women and gender diversity: if there are many managers who have made their way in the industry, even in the insidious Silicon Valley, banks, insurance and financial services remain the prerogative of males.
Last year Wall Street named the first female as the head of one of the largest international investment banks. It is about Jane Fraser, 54, who now leads Citigroup. This year in Europe the same happened in managed savings: the French giant Amundi has chosen Valerie Baudson to succeed the historic CEO Yves perrier, who would become President.
Perrier had long ago supported a female figure in his succession and the choice fell on Baudson, born in 1971, his right-hand man and deputy ceo, member of the general management committee of Amundi, responsible for CPR AM, passive management / ETF and of the Third Party Distribution & Wealth Clients Division.
Amundi, 1.7 trillion in assets under management including the Pioneer funds purchased years ago by Unicredit, is part of the Crédit Agricole group, which in turn has a large number of women in top positions. Among these there is also Monica Defend, global head of research at Amundi. However, so far none had climbed the top positions. And Crédit Agricole, a bank famous for many firsts including that of being a pioneer on sustainability and ESG criteria (crasis of Enviromental, social and governance, including gender diversity) was also the first to choose a woman, who from the next May 10 will assume the powers of Amundi.
However, the carriage turns into a pumpkin, because on reading Amundi’s remuneration policies pending the inauguration of the new top it emerges that Baudson will earn a third less than her predecessor Perrier. In accordance with the best practices that incentivize merit, the manager will in fact receive a fixed and a variable salary, up to a maximum of 2 million euros upon achieving certain objectives. In 2020 Perrier had instead received 3 million euros (of which one fixed and two variable) and had donated half of his bonus, or one million euros, to people in need due to the pandemic
So the affirmation of the less represented gender at the top of the transalpine giant comes, but at a high price: that of a 33% lower salary. And so what seemed like a record is likely to turn out to be a boomerang for Amundi. The company specifies that the difference lies in the Perrier contract, which comes from the mother bank Agricole, and in his greater length of service, the fact remains that the gap is very high.
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