SHARON FRASER is blazing a trail in the male-dominated world of finance. A decade ago she became one of 83 women among the 629 partners at Deloitte. Two years ago she became the first woman to be appointed to the professional-services company’s 18-strong executive group.

Fraser, who has worked for the company, which specialises in tax, auditing and consultancy, for more than 20 years, enjoys the trappings that go with a job at the top. “Average earnings for partners at Deloitte last year were £870,000,” she said, “and this year they will be higher.”

It’s a long-hours, driven culture but Fraser, who is based in Manchester, still manages to carve out time to indulge her passions — skiing, driving fast cars and watching sporting events.

As managing partner for talent, Fraser has an agenda: she wants to see a big increase in women holding senior positions in the company. The proportion of female partners now stands at 13%; Fraser believes it ought to be closer to American levels, about 25%, though she thinks that may take a decade to reach.

“When I joined the business in 1986, 50% of the people we recruited were women,” said Fraser. “Ten years before that 50% of new recruits were women. Why are they not coming through in greater numbers to be partners or managing directors? We recruit all these brilliant people, then we lose them. It’s not a good business model.”

Why does it matter whether a board fields as many women as men? Fraser argues that society is changing. With more women working and making investment decisions, financial-services firms need employees who match the gender profile of their customers, she said.

Even more convincing is the research that links company performance with the number of women at the top. A study by the American think tank Catalyst ranked Fortune 500 companies according to the proportion of women on their boards: the top 25% turned in a 53% higher return on equity than the bottom 25%. A 2007 McKinsey report on 89 European companies came to similar conclusions.

Fraser said the shortage of highly placed women in business and finance was a national failing — and across the competitive world of banking and finance the race to boost numbers was on. “We are very aware of what our rivals are doing on this front. Most are around the same percentage level as us, though there is one at 16%,” she said.

At Citi, Carolanne Minashi, head of diversity and a mother of four, reveals that women account for 14% of the firm’s board (2 women out of 14). Citi doesn’t believe in quotas or targets, but there is a general desire, she said, to see more women in the upper echelons.

At UBS it’s a similar story. Mona Lau, UBS’s group head of diversity and a mother of two, agrees that quotas are frowned on at her bank. UBS has developed a “gender index” which monitors numbers of women at different levels in the organisation. “Over the past five years,” she said, “the gender index has improved 7%-8% a year.”

So why do women stumble in the race to the top? The same factor crops up again and again: having children still sounds the death knell for many careers. Women often leave after starting a family, presumably because they find it unsatisfactory or just too difficult to juggle work and home life. To counter this, many top firms have promoted flexible and part-time working as well as coaching to support women returning to work.

Minashi heads up Maternity Matters, a Citi initiative that aims to retain female employees embarking on motherhood. She is proud of the fact that 98% of new mothers return to work at Citi, though a follow-up study suggests that the retention rate for one cohort, three years down the line, had dropped to 75%. “We are researching why the women left,” said Minashi.

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO