In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, Morningstar is putting the spotlight on seven female fund managers who have impressed us. These experts have consistently demonstrated skilled portfolio construction, serving their clients well over the long term and earn High or Above Average People Pillar ratings.
We commend the following portfolio managers who contribute to the success of strategies available for sale in the UK: Charlotte Yonge and Alexandra Ivanova for allocation funds; Ada Chan and Fiona Yang on the equity side and Shannon Ward, Kirstie Spence, and Paola Binns for fixed-income funds.
Allocation Funds — Top Performing Female Managers
Charlotte Yonge, Troy
Charlotte Yonge is the comanager of Trojan Fund and Personal Assets Trust and fund manager of Trojan Ethical Fund. She joined Troy in 2013 and was promoted from assistant fund manager to comanager of Trojan Fund alongside Sebastian Lyon in May 2025. The strategy earns a High People Pillar rating. Yonge has also managed the ethical version of this strategy since 2019.
Trojan Fund invests in equities, government bonds, inflation-linked bonds, and precious metals—mainly gold—and makes active use of cash. Both asset allocation and stock-selection decisions are made from the standpoint of minimizing drawdowns and avoiding a permanent loss of capital.
Returns since inception have been strong, benefiting from a higher-quality bias in stock selection, while the use of inflation-linked bonds and cash has also been additive. Risk-adjusted returns in particular have been very impressive throughout the strategy’s life.
Alexandra Ivanova, Invesco
Alexandra Ivanova has been comanager on Invesco Global Income alongside Paul Causer and Paul Read from August 2020 and has been the lead manager of the strategy since the start of 2022, after which she has been responsible for the fixed-income and allocation calls. The strategy earns an Above Average People Pillar rating.
Ivanova has 25 years of industry experience and joined Invesco in 2006. She joined the Henley-based fixed-interest team in July 2015 and has been part of the global asset-allocation committee for eight years.
The fund follows an income-oriented strategy without a formal distribution target, giving managers greater flexibility than many peers. Benchmarked against a 40% global equity/60% bond split, asset allocation is driven by relative value opportunities across markets. While equity exposure can theoretically range from 35% to 65%, it has historically remained between 35% and 48% to prevent equity risk from dominating the portfolio. The fund has generated strong risk-adjusted returns, comfortably outperforming both the average peer and the index.
Fixed-Income Funds — Top-Performing Female Fund Managers
Shannon Ward and Kirstie Spence, Capital Group
Shannon Ward has 33 years of investment industry experience and has been with Capital Group for nine years. Prior to joining Capital, Ward worked as a portfolio manager at Oaktree Capital Management.
Kirstie Spence has over 30 years of investment industry experience, all with Capital Group. Earlier in her career at Capital, Spence was a fixed-income investment analyst, and her coverage included sovereign debt in emerging markets with a focus on Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, as well as European telecommunications as a credit analyst.
Since June 2021, emerging-market debt manager Kirstie Spence and high-yield manager Shannon Ward joined the portfolio management team of Capital Group Global High Income Opportunities. Their respective counterparts include Luis Freitas de Oliveira and David Daigle. The strategy earns an Above Average People Pillar rating.
Over the past 20 years, the strategy has consistently outperformed its global flexible bond Morningstar Category peers and its category benchmark on both an absolute and risk-adjusted basis, supported by strong credit selection.
Paola Binns, Royal London Asset Management
Paola Binns has been the lead manager of Royal London Short Duration Credit Fund since its inception in November 2013. She brings some 20 years’ experience in bond markets to Royal London Asset Management, having joined in August 2007 from Credit Suisse Asset Management, where she was responsible for managing credit assets. The strategy earns a High People Pillar rating.
The approach revolves around bottom-up security selection and developing a deep understanding of the covenant, structure, and security of a bond, as well as its more fundamental corporate characteristics, to identify potential mispricings.
The portfolio has a number of distinguishing features, including a bias to secured bonds—property debentures, social housing, and residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities—and structured, as well as the ability to use its high-yield allocation tactically.
The absolute and risk-adjusted return profile of the fund compares very favorably against its benchmark and peers, with strong security selection the main driver of outperformance.
Equity Funds — Top-Performing Female Fund Managers
Ada Chan, JOHCM
Ada Chan is senior fund manager for the JOHCM Global Emerging Markets Opportunities strategy. She was promoted to a portfolio manager in January 2022 and a senior portfolio manager in October 2023. Chan is actively involved in portfolio construction and top-down analysis, alongside her bottom-up stock selection work. The strategy earns an Above Average People Pillar rating.
The investment process is anchored in rigorous top-down analysis of the 26 countries within the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The team employs a proprietary framework that generates an overall score for each country and assesses the attractiveness of market characteristics. At the stock level, the approach follows a growth at a reasonable price philosophy.
Since its inception in June 2011, the strategy has delivered strong performance. It has also shown notable downside resilience, supported by a consistent ability to avoid countries entering cyclical downturns and a disciplined focus on valuation.
Fiona Yang, Invesco
Fiona Yang was appointed co-portfolio manager of the Invesco Asia Dragon investment trust in January 2022, assuming responsibility for stock selection at that time. She effectively led the strategy for much of 2023 and was formally named lead manager in May 2024. She has been part of the Asian and emerging-market team since August 2017. The strategy earns an Above Average People Pillar rating.
The strategy is unconstrained and distinctly contrarian, aiming to identify companies trading at a meaningful discount to the team’s assessment of intrinsic value. While it has no explicit style bias, its valuation-driven process and emphasis on out-of-favor areas typically result in a modest value tilt.
The trust has delivered strong long-term performance and demonstrated resilient downside protection, largely reflecting its disciplined focus on valuation and balance-sheet strength.
