The other superwoman

NICHOLA Pease is the City's secret Superwoman. While her near namesake Nicola Horlick, Carol Galley and Clara Furse have hogged the headlines, the chief executive of asset manager JO Hambro has, until now, shunned publicity.

She rarely gives interviews and is uncomfortable with the public's fascination over the perfectly groomed, rich and successful Alpha Females of the Square Mile, though it has to be said that she fulfils the textbook qualifications.

A tall, slim blonde with a winning smile, 39-year-old Pease is married to multimillionaire fund manager Crispin Odey, and combines running JO Hambro with bringing up three children.

She is now pitting herself against giants such as Amvescap and Fidelity in a bid to sell investment funds to individual savers. Pease believes she can take on her big-name rivals by assembling a happy family of high-performing investment experts.

'There is definitely a need for entrepreneurial, medium-size companies like this,' she says. 'There is a great deal of dissatisfaction among fund managers in big companies, where investment processes are imposed and centralised.

'Only 20% of UK fund managers run the same fund for more than five years. We hope our managers will stay with us for a long time, which will be good for investors. They don't like a lot of chopping and changing.'

Pease, who arrived in the City in the heady days of the Eighties, is one of the pioneering women to break into an exclusive male domain. Armed with a degree in English from Exeter University, she began her career at investment bank Kleinwort Benson, winning one of six places from 1,000 applicants.

'My male friends thought it was a joke I was even applying,' she says. 'I was one of the first women they took, so they were looking for a survivor. Everybody was very bright. I went to a night school to catch up. I did find it pretty terrifying at first.'

Set up broking business
She learned fast. At 23, she was hired by Smith New Court to set up a new broking arm. Over the next decade, she built it up from one employee to 100.

'I started in a room on my own and built it from there. At the time, I remember feeling a bit concerned about taking on the job, but I finally thought, 'I will have a go, because people will forgive me a failure at this age'. I thought Smiths were taking a bigger risk than me,' she says, laughing.

Despite the City's reputation as a bastion of chauvinism, Pease is adamant that her gender has not weighed against her.

'The key thing is to get your skill set and be useful. Then people forget what gender you are. I just try to be professional. I have never found any of that glass ceiling stuff. Has being female pushed me forward? I suppose sometimes people remember you more than a man.

'If you went to a lunch with a company, you would be put next to the chief executive, which is marvellous, because you could have a one-to-one talk. But it doesn't really make much difference.'

When Smith was taken over by US giant Merrill Lynch, Pease left for broker Rowe Price Fleming, before meeting Christopher Mills, one of JO Hambro's founders.

By then a mother of two, she was ready for a move out of the City mainstream. She and Odey now have two boys, aged three and seven, and a four-year-old daughter. Pease works a four-day week, to have one day to pick them up from school.

Difficulty of work and motherhood
'It is busy, but I feel I am balancing it better,' she says. 'The work and motherhood issue is a difficult one.

'If you are not working, you can rightly say you are doing a great job mothering. But I recognise that I am better if I have a contrast in my life. I don't think I would have been very good at full-time mothering,' she says.

It helps that Odey, 42, backs her career. 'Crispin has always been supportive. He really likes me working.' Of course, their wealth - Odey was Britain's highest-paid boss in 1994 with more than £19m - helps to smooth any domestic glitches.

Pease seems unworried at the prospect of attacking retail markets while shares are in the doldrums. 'It is a difficult time to raise new money. But in a strange way I like that, because it means you really have to be good.

'Launching at the top of the market is not good for the investor. We can make more for them now than we could have at the peak of the internet bubble.'

JO Hambro, which now manages £750m, has drawn in around £35m retail funds so far. 'Not bad for a few months, and we don't have a deep pocket for advertising,' says Pease. 'We hope to be at £100m by year-end.'

One issue that might raise eyebrows is the firm's unusual way of charging investors. If a fund outperforms its targets by 1%, it levies a hefty 15% ' performance fee' on the excess. Performance fees are not permitted by the UK Financial Services Authority, so the funds are based in Dublin.

'Performance fees make sense'
Pease admits that this approach may be criticised, but says: 'We wanted the interests of the investor to be aligned with those of the fund manager. We would normally have charged a management fee of 1.5% a year, but we cut that to 1.25%. To bring us back to 1.5%, we have to outperform the benchmark by 3%.

That might sound easy, but only 6% of UK fund managers outperformed their benchmarks in the last five years.

'If there is no outperformance, there is no bonus. And if there is no risk management, there is no bonus, because you have to carry forward losses from previous years.'

She concedes that, when markets fall, investors could lose money, but still have to pay the performance fee. 'That is the case if you are putting your money to work for you on the market,' she says. 'I do feel performance fees make sense and our model has been well received.'

JO Hambro makes great play of the stability its managers will offer, and that investors will not be palmed off with a different person running their cash every year.

But what will Pease do if she makes a success of the business, and is offered millions to sell out? 'It is more likely that we would look for a stock market float,' she says. 'Others have done very well by taking that route.'

Finance courses through Pease's veins. She comes from a City dynasty. Her father, Sir Richard, comes from one of the founding families of Barclays bank and is a former chairman of Yorkshire Bank. Her brother, also named Richard, works for New Star Asset Management.

The clan was not overwhelmed at the idea of a female member going into finance. 'I wasn't given any encouragement,' she says. 'My family are very supportive now, but understandably at the time they didn't know many girls going into the City, so there was a bit of reservation. Now my father loves the fact that I have done it.'

She may not be thrilled at the observation, but Pease does appear to have a distinctively female management style.

'Working all hours is unhealthy'
Despite her claim that her gender has not affected her career, she is not a great fan of big, hierarchical corporate structures, largely controlled by men, or of the macho 14-hour-a-day work ethic in many City firms.

The stress she puts on creating a loyal, stable team of managers is also a long way from the ruthless hire-and-fire methods of some male bosses.

'The City is a less pleasant place than it was,' she says. 'It has become so well paid that you are expected to give your life to it. I think success in life is not just your job, it is a much broader definition. For me, working all hours and having no time to look outside and think is very unhealthy.'

Pease's achievements and connections enable her to chart her own course in a cut-throat world. But until the City changes its ways, its small band of Superwomen is unlikely to get much bigger.

Interview by Ruth Sunderland