NYSE To Soon Greet The Fearless Girl Statue

The Fearless Girl facing the Manhattan financial district's famous Charging Bull near Wall Street will get a new permanent home by the end of this year in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Despite several criticism, the statue has become a tourist destination and a global symbol of female business prowess since its installation more than a year ago.

About The Fearless Girl

She is a ponytailed, young, four-foot-tall bronze monument with fists on hips and chin held high as a symbol of empowerment. State Street Global Advisors at Bowling Green Park on Broadway Street originally installed the sculpture on the eve of International Women’s Day 2017. The Fearless Girl is a growing symbol for gender equality and the power of women in leadership. It spreads a message to encourage companies to recruit women to their board. The plaque at the statue’s feet reads “Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.”

The ‘Fearless Girl’ is part of a campaign by State Street to encourage companies to add more women to their boards and to advertise SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF SHE, which comprises gender-diverse companies that have a relatively high percentage of women among their senior leadership.

Inside SHE

This ETF offers exposure to U.S. companies that demonstrate greater gender diversity within senior leadership than other firms in their sector by tracking the SSGA Gender Diversity Index. Holding 168 stocks, it is moderately concentrated on the top firms as each account for less than 5.8% of assets. Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) , Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and Mastercard Inc. (NYSE:MA) are top three holdings. From a sector look, information technology takes the largest share at 22.2%, followed by healthcare (16.4%), consumer staples (13.1%) and consumer discretionary (12.0%). SHE has returned 10.2% over the past year versus the gain of 15.45% for the broad market fund (AX:SPY) .

Impact On Women-Leadership

Out of 700 companies in the United States, Britain and Australia that had no women serving on their boards, more than 150 companies have added a female director to their boards since the placement of the bronze girl statue, with another 34 pledging to do so. Currently, women make up 5% of CEOs in the Fortune 500 companies and 17% of the corporate board members among Fortune 500 companies.

Today, a record number of women are in power this year. In the United States, 32 Fortune 500 CEOs are women, three women are in the Supreme Court, and three of the last eight U.S. Secretaries of State were women. Last year, 15 of 146 world leaders were women, eight of whom served as their country’s first female leaders. Some of the famous women leaders include Angela Merkel and Dilma Rousseff.

In the corporate world, Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) ; Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) ; Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors (NYSE:GM) ; Angela Ahrendts, Senior Vice-President of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) ; Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup Company (NYSE:CPB) ; and Michele Buck, CEO of Hershey (NYSE:HSY) are leaders in their own right. Per several researches, companies led by women have a long history of outperformance.

Bottom Line

Placing the Fearless Girl right next to the NYSE is the perfect metaphor to promote more companies to hire women to their boards, according to the State Street Global Advisors. With the move, the Fearless Girl will be more powerful standing alone outside NYSE than the her current home turf, which she shares with the Charging Bull. Hopefully, she will continue to stimulate the power of having women in leadership.

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