Women face 'archaic boys' club' as mining investors – Femina Collective CEO

➤ Femina Collective is launching a women-led mining investment club in March.

➤ Systemic bias is a barrier for women who want to invest in the sector.

➤ Mining companies risk missing out on a growing pool of women-held capital.

Beth Borody, founder and CEO of the Femina Collective. Source: Beth Borody.

Women face entrenched bias as potential investors in the male-dominated mining sector. They miss out on crucial tips and information passed through informal networks, and they do not get the same mining investment opportunities, according to Beth Borody, founder and CEO of the Femina Collective.

The number of women in mining is growing, but there is still a stark imbalance. Women accounted for just 12.1% of the sector's C-suite positions in 2023, according to an S&P Global Commodity Insights analysis of the most recent data available.

To help break barriers, the Femina Collective is launching a women-led investment club in March that will educate members and industry while encouraging participation in investment opportunities. Mining companies hunting for funds risk losing a growing pool of cash if they ignore women as investors, Borody said.

S&P Global Commodity Insights recently spoke with Borody about the Canada-based collective's strategy and the issues facing women in mining investment. The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

S&P Global Commodity Insights: What is the Femina Collective?

Beth Borody: The Femina Collective is an organization for women in the mining industry. We foster both community and women being able to network and promote themselves for leadership roles and board opportunities. And we most recently have gotten into the investment side of promoting women investing in the mining industry based on the knowledge and work that we do every day.

You told an anecdote in a recent speech about how stockbrokers gave friends of yours, three male-female couples, different advice on investing in the mining sector. For the men, the brokers welcomed a conversation about risk and potential investments. And for the women, they advised against mining investments, saying it was too risky. What does that say about mining investment and the challenges women face that men do not?

I heard from all my female friends that they were told mining is too risky, while all of their husbands were told, "Yeah, let's sit down and talk about this. This is great." It says what we know. The financial and investment world is saying mining investments are not made for women, and that women aren't smart enough to make those financial decisions, and that we don't have the ability to invest in the same way that men do without facing additional hurdles.

I shouldn't have to explain to my financial adviser why I want to invest in a certain thing. If I come and say, "I want to invest in mining. I want it as part of my portfolio. Can you show me the options to make that happen?" the only answer should be, "Sure. Let's sit down and talk about it, and let me walk you through it." We shouldn't be weeding women out prematurely by just assuming we don't want to take on risk or assuming that it's something that we wouldn't understand.

Do you think explicit or implicit sexism is at play?

I think it's systemic. Women have not had much ability to build their own wealth or finances independent of their husbands, fathers, brothers — whoever the man is in their life — [until] the '80s. I am part of the first generation of women here in Canada able to independently build my own wealth. That says something right there about how the system has been made. And so, women are trying to catch up right now in a very archaic boys' club.

Just thinking we're equal does not make it so in all ways that matter, right?

Yes, exactly. You look at how media portrays wealth between men and women. You'll see a lot of ads that show men in their suits; they're down on Wall Street; they're in front of their computers. And then you look at the images of women in finance, and it's either us blowing our credit card limits on clothes and bags, or it's looking at how to save money on a grocery list. And so [for women, the portrayal is] either childlike or irresponsible, where men are seen as the ones who can make the decisions and who are smart enough to be able to make those decisions.

If women are not necessarily part of the old boys' club, as you put it — networking and hearing about potential investments — what are some of the solutions? Build different networks?

It's education for sure. I think that it's pulling together. There are some phenomenal women on the finance side, the geology side, in the junior space, who are more than ready and more than willing to lend their expertise to other women so that we can actually start educating people on these opportunities.

I think we need to recognize that, although a lot of formal information and conversations happen on formal platforms, women are still missing out on that informal piece — at the golf club, at the steakhouse, wherever it may be. But I think as long as we are educating women in these roles, and that we have men who also come alongside us and also want to lend their expertise, that we're going to start seeing that barrier get broken down a little bit more.

Canada has very unique ways to invest in mining. We're the only country in the world that allows flow-through shares. We have very unique rules around investing in mining, and we just need to educate women on that to give them the option.

You are launching this women-led investment club during the annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto in early March. Will initial members have money ready to deploy?

We do have committed investors who are women and who are willing to put money on the table for the club.

Will it be hard to focus on women-led organizations in an otherwise male-dominated sector?

The first thing is that we could never just focus on women-led mining companies because there are not enough of them. So that would be a dumb move for us to do. It's also about asking, "How are these operations or projects setting themselves up for responsible mining? What type of disclosures are they giving? How are they working with Indigenous communities? What is the makeup of their board?"

Is it harder to push for change and advocate for women in mining and investment while we see diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs being rolled back more broadly?

DEI, no one wants to talk about it anymore. It's a bad word now. People cringe at it. This makes it harder, for sure, if you're looking at traditional ways of trying to influence the industry.

I think what we're trying to do, by putting a focus on being female-led through investment education and in an investment club, is that it's doing something that's never been done before here in Canada. And it's giving women a platform and a space to come together and do this where they don't have to fight or compete for space.

It's almost like building our own little ship that we can sail alongside everyone else with the hopes that we all just integrate at some point. And just recognize that we're 50% of the population. If you're not leveraging women and you're not leveraging the wealth that women are going to be holding in the next few years, then you're doing yourself a disservice by continuing to just go to the same pockets over and over again.