Frankle Featured in Forbes on Scarcity of Women in M&A
In “Women Still Sparse in M&A Circles,” Forbes delves into the findings of a 2014 M&A ABA study conducted by Jen Muller, managing director at investment bank Houlihan Lokey, and Eric Talley, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, of more than 17,000 M&A lawyers in a bid to determine how to address the lack of women in the field.
According to Corporate partner Diane Frankle, who has been an M&A lawyer for more than 25 years, women are not “opting in” to transactional M&A because it is seen as “too intense.”
In 2014, Frankle participated in the "Women in M&A Practice" at the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy (BCLBE) conference, as part of the BCLBE Women in Business Law Speaker Series. Here, she discussed the results of the study, explaining that encouragement by managers, colleagues and the creation of development opportunities for women in deal making were among many creative ways of remedying the situation.
The survey found that 40% of attorneys in their first and second year held M&A practice positions, but the figure fell to only 15% for senior equity partners.
Frankle observed that women overall, “and this is a gross simplification,” are more collaborative, take a longer-term view, value relationships more and tend to be more emotionally intelligent. She believes this leads to "more effective, efficient, and in general, more satisfactory negotiation.”