Supports Senior Roles for Women through Vice President, Sibyl Kavak
December 16th, 2019
St. Cloud Capital’s Vice President Ms. Sibyl Kavak, represents the firm at conferences nationwide. On September 23, 2019, Ms. Kavak attended both the Kayo Women’s Credit Forum and the Kayo Women’s Private Equity 2019 Summit in Boston, MA. Kayo believes that women should have a community that supports, elevates, and champions them. Attendance at the conference is a testament to this belief. Ms. Kavak notes that there were approximately 500 women in attendance on both days, and “the largest women’s conference she has been to.” This year’s talk ranged from the Evolution of Female Founders in Credit to Next Generation of Female Leaders in Private Equity. Ms. Kavak had a chance to network and build long-lasting relationships with like-minded women in private equity and direct lending industry through this conference.
Ms. Kavak found both days to be useful and filled with great content. According to Ms, Kavak, the first day had a wide range of topics from private debt as an asset class and different financing options in today’s competitive landscape. As Ms. Kavak states, “The panel entitled Evolution of Female Founders in Credit provided female founders a platform to speak about their challenges raising their first funds.” She added, “this is particularly inspiring since women still make up such a small slice of leadership roles in the industry. The private equity day had considerable valuable content as well including different industry discussions ranging from consumer-packaged goods to biotech. There were also great discussions on post-merger integration and the difficulties around combining process, technologies, and cultures successfully and cost-effectively.”
In addition to expert panels, Ms. Kavak noted that “both days also provided for a lot of great networking opportunities and meaningful discussions with women in the financial industry.” According to a New York Times article, “Roughly less than 20 percent of financial advisers are women, a number that has barely budged for the past two decades despite rising gender equity in other fields.” However, according to the NYT “a study by the Warwick Business School concluded that women outperformed men at investing by 1.8 percent.” The Economist article adds that “[this outperformance is because] women are more risk-aware.” In fact, according to the Boston Consulting Group, “between 2010 and 2015 private wealth held by women grew from $34trn to $51trn. By 2020 they are expected to hold $72trn, 32% of the total.” This means that “investment firms focusing on wealthy women are springing up, such as Ellevest (motto: “Invest Like a Woman”). Other money managers are seeking to hire female advisers and setting up dedicated teams for female clients.”
Ms. Kavak is excited to be in this everchanging industry with other female professionals and to apply new industry insights she learned at the conference into her daily routine. St. Cloud Capital’s Managing Partner, Kacy Rozelle, adds “we were excited to finally be able to access the valuable Kayo programs and hope Sibyl continues to attend annually.”