In terms of girls’s development in public finance, Samantha Costanzo is clear-eyed but optimistic.

The previous Citi banker earlier this month was tapped by Huntington Nationwide Financial institution to turn into the agency’s head of public finance, the fourth girl to ascend to the position within the municipal trade.

She describes the query of equal illustration in monetary companies as “a hen and egg downside,” which she’s chaired numerous initiatives through the years to attempt to tackle.  

“Pay attention, it is the character of Wall Road in quite a lot of methods — it is a completely different profession path and a unique atmosphere than going into finance on the issuer degree … and it’s largely dominated by males,” she informed The Bond Purchaser. “I imply, that is only a matter of truth.”

However “we’ve a possibility, as girls in these roles, to achieve out and assist different girls,” she added. “I believe all of us have to guarantee that that is high of thoughts. There have been many ladies who helped me alongside the way in which — went out of their means, utterly above and past what a good friend or a shopper or anybody wanted to do for me, however did it simply because they wished to present me a lift. And I have not forgotten that.”

Knowledge on girls in finance present the trade has some floor to make up. An October 2021 report from McKinsey & Firm on gender and race gaps in U.S. monetary companies discovered “a leaky pipeline from which girls are falling out in higher numbers as they progress up the profession ladder.” Not solely is there a “damaged rung” between entry degree and supervisor roles, the report discovered, however these girls who do ascend, like Costanzo, typically wind up doing additional, unrewarded work mentoring and constructing DEI applications.

And a June 2022 report from Deloitte on feminine management in monetary companies confirmed that by 2021, girls within the U.S. held solely 21.1% of C-suite roles and 21% of senior management positions. Nonetheless, there was one ray of sunshine: a noticeable “multiplier impact,” or a 3x improve within the variety of girls employed to senior management roles for each girl who joined the C-suite in America.  

The report discovered that as a result of multiplier impact, it issues not solely what number of girls are coming into the expertise pipeline, however, as essential, what number of are ascending to the highest ranges. The report additionally warned of a “reverse multiplier” impact, by which every girl who leaves a senior management position triggers an exodus within the subsequent era cohort.

That is a dynamic that Costanzo is attempting to vary. She’s concerned in Ladies in Public Finance; she mentors; and generally, she tries “to develop these junior girls into senior girls” in municipal finance.

“It is onerous — and I skilled it myself — it is onerous as a younger girl in your 20s, beginning out on this enterprise, to search for and discover a good position mannequin, somebody you wish to be like,” she mentioned. “Since you’re often searching for one other girl to mannequin your profession and your path after. And if there are no senior girls, then it will be onerous to discover a position mannequin. And guess what? After a pair years, they most likely drop out and go away. I believe that is extra the problem than the rest.”

As a mentor, Costanzo attracts on classes she discovered from her personal mentors and sponsors — a few of them direct managers, others those that she simply met by the enterprise. Maybe a very powerful is to push oneself past one’s consolation zone.

“It’s important to be pushed outdoors of your consolation zone to actually develop,” she noticed. “And that is frankly how you progress up. That is the way you get the following position, the following promotion, the following alternative. And at the same time as you transition simply by the profession path of a typical funding banker, transferring from extra of a junior analytical assist particular person to extra of a brand new enterprise particular person, you must actually push your self to take that leap.”

Ladies have typically turned to Costanzo as they’ve began households or returned from maternity depart, searching for steering on tips on how to strike the appropriate stability between rising household and profession. The reply is exclusive for each particular person, she mentioned, however having struck that stability twice herself, she will communicate to the significance of excellent household depart insurance policies — for everybody.

“The development has been — throughout the funding banking space, anyway — to offer parental depart for each women and men, and if something, I believe that timeframe has gotten longer in recent times,” she mentioned. “It is critically essential for each mother and father to spend that point with their new child, bonding. And by saying that it is purely for girls to have that point, it is type of going again to stereotyping that that is a lady’s job… I believe it is critically essential, and I would like to see it extra extensively provided, by every kind of employers throughout the Road.”

Because the second quarter is about to begin, Costanzo appears to be like forward and sees loads of money out available in the market. She mentioned “there’s nonetheless a good quantity of uncertainty on the market,” however “fortunately, munis have held in there.”

Over the previous yr, tax-exempt muni charges have held comparatively steady, she added, at the same time as taxable charges have been way more risky. And on the finish of the day, Costanzo is as optimistic concerning the the rest of this yr as she is about girls’s prospects in public finance.

“It feels to me like issuers will proceed to get a very good reception within the market, and it feels as if there are fairly a number of offers constructing over the course of the following a number of months,” she mentioned. “So I am actually wanting ahead to a very good yr this yr; I believe we will see issuers who had been out of the market or did not difficulty practically as a lot as they sometimes did in prior years coming again into the market this yr — needing to borrow for brand new cash once more. And I believe we will proceed to see alternatives with present refundings and likewise with tenders this yr.” 

Huntington ranked thirty third as lead underwriter in 2023, engaged on 71 offers totaling $1.103 billion. Via March 21, the agency has lead managed 19 offers totaling $203.6 million and sits in thirty third place.