Hello RA,
Thank you for your comment. Sadly, what you say is true if you look at the demographics of the industry. I wish that it weren't so. In fact, if you read my post entitled, "Alpha Wounds: A Lack of Diversity in the Human Resources Portfolio," you will see that not only do I agree with you, but that I take your argument even further. Specifically, you should be a North American white male that went to an Ivy League school.
All of that said, I also recognize that this issue is more complicated than implied by you...and here I may be assuming too much about your meaning. I take as your meaning that there is a conscious effort to keep non-white and/or females out of the business. In short, I have not seen such a formal effort put in place. What I have seen is a finance industry on auto-pilot in terms of how it recruits and hires people on the front end, and also about its white male "bro" culture. This is a different issue than active prejudice, and sadly therefore it is more difficult to change as it falls into the category of unconscious bias.
Next, all of that said, I remember that when we sought to hire research analyst interns that we very specifically would look for non-white and/or female recruits. Yet, out of hundreds of candidates we would receive maybe 2-3 women, and maybe 10 or so non-white folks. To be blunt, our job was to hire the best candidate for a position. When you receive such a low number of applicants who are non-white it means that the levels of competition faced by non-white males is even higher. At the end of the day, the skillset is what is hired, and when 397 of 400 applicants are white males, there is statistically a higher chance of that skillset being in the 397 than in the 3.
What this means is that no one firm is responsible for the outcome of the industry being dominated by white males and makes the problem even more intractable.
I conclude by saying that if you are qualified there is a position for you in investment management. At our own firm, Davis Funds, we had a much higher proportion of non-white and/or non-males than at other firms. This is evidence that what truly matters is qualifications. Yes, I may be naïve about this. But if you want it very badly then continue to look for work.
Yours, in service,
Jason