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In this episode of the Spotlight podcast, we hear from Alexandra von Bernstorff, founder and managing partner at Luxcara, and Pam Chan, chief investment officer and global head of the Alternative Solutions Group at BlackRock.
Von Bernstorff and Chan talk through the challenges they faced at the beginning of their careers and share their advice for women starting out in private markets. They touch on some of the difficulties they experienced while working their way up to senior roles, such as balancing starting a family with work duties, and facing preconceptions about the kind of attributes that are needed to succeed in the industry.
They also discuss the way that the education pathways girls are encouraged to follow can influence the number of women in finance. A study from Harvard University found that in the US, there are about three men for every female student majoring in economics, and this number has not changed in the past 20 years.
Von Bernstorff and Chan are among 60 professionals featured in PEI Media’s Women of Influence in Private Markets list 2022 – in the infrastructure category and cross-asset-class category, respectively. The list celebrates outstanding women working in alternative assets across six categories: private equity, private debt, infrastructure, real estate, venture capital and cross asset class.