Why Aren't Women Investing?

Why Aren’t Women Investing?

Why do so many women still feel disconnected from conversations about money, investing and their financial futures? And what needs to change to make financial education genuinely accessible?

In this episode of FinTech’s DEI Discussions, host Nadia Edwards-Dashti is joined by Rosie Gill, Managing Director at Manor House Financial Services Ltd and Founder of Let’s Grow Girls, for a conversation about financial education, women in finance, female financial empowerment and the importance of creating spaces where people feel comfortable talking openly about money.

Rosie shares her own career journey, including her move from corporate banking into wealth management, and explains how that transition exposed her to a problem she felt compelled to address. Through Let’s Grow Girls, Rosie is working to help women better understand personal finance, develop their financial confidence and feel more empowered to make decisions about their money.

The conversation explores why money can remain such a taboo subject, the differences Rosie sees between the financial journeys of men and women, the gender pension gap, women investing, financial literacy and the role employers can play in improving workplace financial education.

At the centre of the episode is a simple message: financial education should not feel intimidating, inaccessible or reserved for people who already understand the language of finance.

From Corporate Banking to Female Financial Empowerment

Rosie’s career did not begin with a plan to work in financial services. After studying Business with German at the University of Manchester, she moved to London in 2015 and went on to spend the majority of her career in customer-facing roles within NatWest’s corporate and institutional bank.

From 2022 onwards, Rosie had responsibility for growing NatWest’s corporate bank in North America, an experience that allowed her to work with a range of clients and develop her career within the corporate banking environment.

Then came a significant change.

Rosie made the decision to leave the corporate world and join her father’s boutique wealth management company. As she describes it, she moved from lending money to large businesses to investing money on behalf of individuals. The transition meant returning to the basics, retraining and completing six exams.

It was also during this career pivot that Rosie launched Let’s Grow Girls, a business with a mission centred on helping women understand personal finance and build greater confidence around money.

Nadia highlights the importance of this career transition during their conversation, particularly in the context of the future of work. The skills developed during one stage of a career can be transferred and reused in completely different environments. Rosie’s move demonstrates how an established financial services career can evolve into something new while retaining the experience and knowledge gained along the way.

For Rosie, however, the transition did more than change her career. It highlighted a gap in financial education that she wanted to address.

Making Financial Education More Accessible for Women

Let’s Grow Girls is built around female empowerment and a mission to make financial education accessible, engaging and genuinely interesting for women.

Rosie explains that she does this through events combining practical financial content with an open, judgement-free environment. The intention is to give women somewhere they can ask questions they may not otherwise feel comfortable asking, while making the experience enjoyable rather than intimidating.

The inspiration came partly from Rosie’s experiences after moving into wealth management. During meetings with couples, she began noticing changes in body language and engagement when conversations turned towards investments and how money was performing. Rosie is careful to acknowledge that this does not apply to everyone, but after seeing the pattern repeatedly, it encouraged her to reflect on her own relationship with money.

She realised that she did not talk to her friends about it either.

Questions around how much people earn, what they do with their cash, how their pensions are invested or how they approach personal finance can remain difficult to discuss. Despite the huge amount of financial information now available online and through social media, Rosie argues that people can still find the subject confusing.

This is where financial literacy becomes about more than simply providing information. Information may exist, but people also need to feel comfortable accessing it, understanding it and asking questions about it.

Rosie describes Let’s Grow Girls as an attempt to fill that gap by bringing women together face-to-face in small, intimate environments where participants are on the same page and can ask open questions without feeling judged.

Women Investing and the Financial Confidence Gap

One of the central themes of the episode is the different experiences men and women can have when beginning their personal finance and investing journeys.

Rosie reflects on her own education and points out that she was not taught about money at school. Subjects such as pensions, mortgages and managing money were not given a specific place in her education. She was fortunate to have her father available to help her, but recognises that this is not the experience everyone has.

The result, Rosie argues, is that many people reach their twenties and thirties and suddenly have to work these things out themselves. This can quickly become overwhelming.

She makes clear that inadequate financial education is not exclusively a female problem. Both men and women can enter adulthood without the knowledge needed to confidently navigate personal finance. However, Rosie identifies a disconnect between the journeys men and women can experience when they begin investing and managing their finances.

During the podcast, Rosie references figures reported by the BBC showing that 26% of women hold investments compared with 41% of men. She also points to Fidelity data suggesting that women achieved slightly better returns than men over the referenced three-year period.

For Rosie, this creates an important distinction. Women may be investing less, but that does not mean they are inherently less capable investors when they do participate.

The challenge is therefore not simply about investment performance. It is also about participation, financial confidence and ensuring women have the knowledge and environment needed to engage with their finances.

Understanding the Gender Pension Gap

The gender pension gap is another major focus of Nadia and Rosie’s conversation.

Rosie describes this as the difference between the amount of money men and women have in their pensions when they reach retirement. Referencing OECD data during the discussion, she says the UK has one of the largest gender pension gaps in the developed world and that British women retire with pensions around 37% lower than men’s.

This becomes particularly important when considered alongside longevity. Rosie points to women statistically outliving men while potentially having less money available to support themselves later in life.

She believes this is an area where change is possible.

As more women enter and progress through the workplace and take control of their own finances, Rosie argues that action around financial education and financial confidence needs to follow.

She also considers some of the cultural factors behind the divide. Historically, she says, men have often been responsible for family finances and investment decisions, although this is changing. When combined with gaps in financial education, these historical patterns can influence how people interact with money.

Rosie connects lower levels of investing with women holding more money in cash, which can lose value through inflation, and ultimately with the wider pension gap experienced at retirement.

Her objective through Let’s Grow Girls is to help make changing that trajectory feel achievable rather than overwhelming.

Let’s Grow Girls and Building Financial Confidence

Let’s Grow Girls takes a deliberately personal approach to financial education.

Rosie explains that the business hosts monthly women-only events, with groups typically consisting of around 20 to 25 women. At the time of the podcast recording, the events were based in London, with the first Leeds event planned for November.

Alongside these events, Rosie works with companies and speaks to women’s networks about financial education. These sessions can be tailored to individual organisations and can include specific conversations around areas such as a company’s pension scheme.

However, the central principle remains the same: small groups and an environment where people can come together and learn.

The events are divided into two levels. Core is aimed at beginners and covers areas including budgeting, debt, cash and pensions. Elevate is designed for people who are ready to begin investing, covering areas such as the stock market, selecting investments, diversification, tax and implementation.

Rosie describes the atmosphere she is trying to create as more of a “girls’ night” than a lecture.

That distinction captures an important part of her approach to female financial empowerment. If financial education is presented in a way that feels intimidating or overly technical, people who already feel behind may disengage further. Creating a more relaxed environment can make asking questions feel normal.

Rosie also explains that attendees at the events she hosts are asked for a £20 charity donation to Inspiring Girls UK, a charity focused on improving confidence among young women at school, including in entrepreneurship and financial education.

Beyond the face-to-face events, Rosie is building an online community so that engagement does not have to end when an event finishes.

Financial Inclusion Starts With Dropping the Jargon

When Nadia asks what needs to change across financial services to allow inclusion to flourish, Rosie’s first recommendation is straightforward: drop the jargon.

Financial services has an extensive vocabulary, but terms that professionals use every day can create an immediate barrier for people who do not work within the industry.

Rosie uses terminology such as “asset allocation” and “equities” as examples. Her argument is not that these concepts do not matter, but that financial education should begin with language people can understand.

That means using relatable examples, making it acceptable to ask questions that might feel obvious and creating safe spaces in which people can learn without worrying about how much they already know.

This is an important part of financial inclusion. Access to information alone does not necessarily mean that information is accessible. If the language surrounding personal finance prevents people from engaging with it, there is still a barrier.

For financial services, the episode therefore raises a wider question about communication. Making finance more inclusive can begin with reconsidering how financial concepts are explained and whether the intended audience genuinely understands them.

Why Workplace Financial Education Matters

Pensions provide one of Rosie’s clearest examples of where workplace financial education could improve.

Employees can join organisations and automatically become enrolled in pension schemes without necessarily receiving meaningful education about how those schemes work. Rosie recounts how one of the biggest takeaways from a recent event came when an attendee discovered that they could choose the fund in which their pension was invested.

Rosie says during the conversation that 90% of pensions are invested in the default fund, representing £500 billion of money. For her, this demonstrates why pension education when someone joins a company could be a relatively simple way of helping people feel more involved in decisions about their financial futures.

Her point extends beyond pensions themselves.

Rosie argues that financial education could be offered as a workplace benefit rather than organisations simply providing a pension scheme and assuming employees understand it.

For employers across financial services, FinTech and the wider economy, this creates an interesting connection between employee benefits and financial confidence. A benefit can only deliver its full value if employees understand what it is, how it works and what choices are available to them.

Role Models, Women in Finance and Financial Inclusion

Visible role models are another important part of the conversation.

Rosie wants people to see more examples of individuals in finance who do not fit the traditional image of the “finance guy in the suit”. She points to the work of Inspiring Girls as an example of the importance of role modelling and building confidence.

Representation matters because it can influence whether someone believes a particular industry, career or conversation is relevant and accessible to them.

Within financial services and FinTech, conversations about diversity and inclusion therefore extend beyond representation in the workforce. They can also include who feels confident participating in financial conversations and who feels represented by the people providing financial information.

Rosie also raises the affordability of financial education and advice. She argues that good advice can often be most readily available to people who already have money, which is another reason she is committed to the work she is doing.

Improving financial literacy and financial inclusion means considering not only what information exists, but who can realistically access and engage with it.

Talking About Money and DEI in Financial Services

Towards the end of the episode, Nadia asks what listeners can do within their own workplaces to move this conversation forward.

Rosie’s first suggestion is perhaps the simplest of the entire episode: start talking about money.

She draws a comparison with conversations around mental health. Topics that were once difficult to discuss openly have increasingly become part of workplace conversations. Rosie believes money needs a similar shift.

Making conversations about money more normal could help reduce some of the discomfort and uncertainty that prevents people from asking questions or seeking financial education.

Alongside those conversations, Rosie wants organisations to consider financial education as a workplace benefit, increase the visibility of role models and continue addressing structural issues including the pay gap and gender pension gap.

These issues matter to the wider conversation around DEI in financial services because inclusion is not limited to who enters an organisation. It also concerns the environment people experience once they are there, the knowledge they can access and whether they feel empowered to make informed decisions about their futures.

For a sector that continues to focus on attracting, developing and retaining talent, these conversations provide another perspective on what an inclusive workplace can look like.

Financial Services, FinTech and the Future of Financial Literacy

Throughout the episode, Rosie’s message consistently returns to accessibility.

Financial education does not need to be overwhelming. Investing does not need to feel inaccessible. People should be able to ask questions without worrying that they should already know the answers.

For women in particular, building financial confidence can have consequences that extend far beyond a single investment decision. The conversation connects financial education with pensions, retirement, investing, workplace benefits, cultural expectations and financial independence.

For the financial services and FinTech industries, it also demonstrates why inclusion should be considered through multiple lenses.

At Harrington Starr, our work across FinTech recruitment gives us a close view of how conversations around talent, workplace culture, diversity and inclusion continue to evolve across the financial technology industry. FinTech’s DEI Discussions provides a platform for people across the sector to share their experiences, highlight challenges and explore practical ways to create more inclusive environments.

This episode adds financial literacy and financial confidence to that conversation, examining how better education and more accessible communication can empower people to take a more active role in their financial futures.

Closing the Financial Confidence Gap

Rosie Gill’s conversation with Nadia demonstrates that improving financial education does not necessarily begin with increasingly complex information. It can start with making existing information easier to understand and creating environments where people feel comfortable asking questions.

Through Let’s Grow Girls, Rosie is working to create those environments for women, combining practical financial education with small-group conversations and a community designed to make learning about money feel less intimidating.

Her wider message to financial services and employers is equally clear. Drop unnecessary jargon. Explain pensions. Make financial education accessible. Create visible role models. Keep addressing structural inequalities. Above all, make it normal to talk about money.

The financial confidence gap cannot be separated from wider conversations around gender equality, financial inclusion and DEI in financial services. If people do not understand the financial products, benefits and opportunities available to them, participation becomes harder.

By encouraging women to understand their money, ask questions and feel confident engaging with investing and personal finance, Rosie hopes to change that.

Listen to this episode of FinTech’s DEI Discussions as Nadia speaks with Rosie Gill, Managing Director at Manor House Financial Services Ltd and Founder of Let’s Grow Girls, about women and money, financial education, women investing, the gender pension gap, workplace financial education and what the financial services industry can do to make financial confidence more accessible to everyone.