The Norma Fund

The Norma Fund was launched privately on April 29, 2014. A group of partners joined forces with financial advisor Fountainhead Financial to establish the fund and prove a point. At the time, only 41 of the companies in the Russell were led by female CEOs. As a group of successful businesswomen, we felt this was shameful, but we also believed that the women who became CEOs under such conditions must be exceptional. And that created an investment opportunity. The Norma Fund includes positions in all the publicly-traded companies in the Russell that have female CEOs and, based on the discretion of the fund, some smaller companies with female CEOs. And that’s all we invest in. We have to hold stock in any Russell firm with a female CEO, but using our collective wisdom, we weight those holdings within the parameters of our Norma Fund charter. Our thesis was twofold: 1. Our own established belief that companies with a female CEO are inherently more diverse, and diverse companies outperform. Only 4.1% of Russell companies had female CEOs, but females made up 43% of the workforce. That staggering underrepresentation indicated to us that the women who have ascended to the CEO role must be significantly above average. We believed that should lead to higher returns for them as a group. We were right. Our results since 2014 have been convincing. The Norma Fund has gained 169% since it was started in June, 2014.