Academic Female Finance Committee

The highlights of 2023:

• In the last couple of years, AFFECT matured as an organization, with a set of established efforts that are expected to be repeated annually in years to come. These initiatives include (i) mentoring, (ii) grants and (iii) demographic survey. In 2023, much of the committee’s effort has been focused on perfecting and expanding these initiatives, as well as the processes and networks that support them.
• In 2023, AFFECT hosted five mentoring events that included 160 unique mentees, an 18% increase relative to the prior year. A total of 28 faculty members in the profession served in a mentoring-type role in those events.
• We received 91 applications for the in-person one day mentoring even hosted by AFFECT ahead of the 2024 AFA. This represented a 117% increase relative to the prior year. The number of accepted mentees increased to 36 (from 30 in the prior year).
• In spring 2023, AFFECT issued its second annual call for funding proposals for supplementary funds to support research-oriented events and other activities that promote gender equality in the academic finance profession and align with AFFECT’s Mission. AFFECT was able to provide funding for eight proposals. Four of these events were outside of U.S. We also started to collect a brief summary of the impact of funded events.
• In 2023, with the generous support from the Journal of Financial Economics, AFFECT awarded two grants to research proposals that involved collecting new data on the standing of women in finance profession. In late 2023, AFFECT circulated a second call for funding proposals for projects that involve collecting new data for research that aligns with AFFECT’s mission.  
• This fall, we launched the second Annual Academic Finance Departments Survey. The goal of the survey is to track the demographics (gender and race) of faculty and PhD students at U.S. business schools. The 2023 survey was closed on December 15, 2023. The response rate to the 2023 survey was 80.3% (as compared to 45.7% in 2023).
• Michelle Lowry will be stepping down as AFFECT Director of Mentoring after the January in-person mentoring event at the AFA. Veronika Krepely Pool has been elected by the Committee with input from the Advisory Board as the next Director of Mentoring.
• In January 2024, the committee will welcome two new members: Katharina Lewellen (Tuck) and Ayako Yasuda (UC Davis). Michelle Lowry will join the Advisory Board of AFFECT.
• The AFFECT Data and Drinks reception is scheduled for 1/5/2024. Cornerstone is the generous and supportive sponsor of the event.