A national study from VersaFi finds Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) women in finance face higher scrutiny, biased evaluations, limited sponsorship and reduced visibility—gaps that widen at senior levels.
Measures of bias and extra scrutiny increase with seniority—for example, 82% of senior leaders say BIPOC women face different standards in leadership evaluations.
Common barriers include biased performance reviews, lack of formal mentorship, limited high-visibility roles and workplace cultures rated as not inclusive.
VersaFi recommends five concrete employer actions: success profiles, standardized crediting, sponsor-linked evaluations, institutionalized shadowing, and reassessing leadership potential.
A VersaFi study titled Dismantling the Performance Tax: Strategies to Advance BIPOC Women in Finance documents a pattern the organization calls the Performance Tax: an extra, compounding burden BIPOC women must pay to be seen as equally capable and ready for leadership. The study surveyed 101 BIPOC women in Canadian finance and added 21 qualitative interviews. Findings show the burden grows with rank—respondents above middle management report higher rates of bias, scrutiny and exclusion.
Survey respondents described patterns where credit for work defaults to more senior or more visible colleagues, mentorship and sponsorship do not reach them, and leadership assessments emphasize conformity to a traditional executive type rather than measurable impact. One quoted respondent said joining an external leadership circle for racialized women created a sense of being seen that her employer did not provide.
VersaFi's recommendations for firms
VersaFi lays out five practical steps firms can take to reduce the performance tax:
VersaFi surveyed 101 BIPOC women via Qualtrics in 2025 and conducted 21 interviews through Environics Research. The sample included 61 participants in middle management or earlier and 61 above that level (the context indicates overlap across levels as reported). The report compares some findings with VersaFi's earlier Powering Progress Scorecard 2026.
The study links ambition with structural barriers: many BIPOC women want senior roles but face uneven evaluation, limited sponsorship and fewer high-visibility opportunities. The report frames those patterns as systemic and offers concrete employer actions aimed at shifting how performance, credit and access are measured and distributed.
New data released this week from the Census Bureau this week reveals the gender pay gap widened for Black women.
Experts say occupational segregation, barriers to progression, bias and other structural factors are helping keep pay gaps in place.
More than half of the independent brokerages participating in this year's IBD Elite study declined to disclose the share of women among financial advisors at their firms. Those that did provide data have done more to advance women than many of their rivals in the independent brokerage channel of wealth management.
The number of Black finance chiefs in Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies ticked down to 15 this year, according to the report from Crist Kolder Associates.
New national data shows nearly half of working Canadians feel worse off than a year ago, with women and parents carrying the thinnest safety nets
A new Vanguard survey of 1,602 US investors challenges long-held but perhaps outdated assumptions about female clients
Loading more related stories...
Open the app view to save this story, compare related coverage, and continue from the same source.