Top European honours for former SA Business Woman of the Year

Investec Asset Management is delighted to announce that Chief Operating Officer Kim McFarland  (pictured) has been listed in the Financial News Top 100 most influential women in European finance. Financial News, published by Dow Jones & Co, is one of Europe’s top institutional trade publications.

McFarland also held the title of South African Business Woman of the Year in 2002 and sits on the advisory board of the UCT Graduate School of Business. She is one of the core team who, along with CEO Hendrik du Toit, grew Investec Asset Management from a company with assets under management of R1 billion and a staff complement of just fifteen in the early 1990s to an international investment manager with approximately R460bn in assets under management today. Investec Asset Management ranks as one of the world’s 50 largest managers of third-party assets.

Over the past three months, Financial News canvassed the market across the continent for opinion and drew up a long list of 250 women. The top 100 were chosen for influence over their area, leadership within their sector, performance over the past year, and their capacity to shape their business and/or industry over the year to come.

The announcement follows the gala dinner earlier this month in which Financial News, in a survey conducted amongst 61 judges consisting of institutional investors, investment consultants and asset managers, voted Du Toit as the top UK-based Asset management CEO. He ranked second after New York-based Larry Fink, CE of Blackrock. Earlier this year, Du Toit was named Global Investor’s Chief Executive of the Year in the Global Investor Awards 2008.

“The honour should go to the whole team at Investec Asset Management, who have shown commitment and strength to keep building an enduring business despite the challenging conditions we are facing globally.”