Membership Directory - Individual

Kate Howitt

About

Bio: Kate Howitt was formerly a Portfolio Manager at Fidelity International based in Sydney. She worked at Fidelity for 16 years, first as an analyst before being promoted to her current role managing Australian equities on behalf of clients. In 2020, Kate was named in Citywire’s list of the top 30 female fund managers in the world, ranking 11th out of 1,762 female active managers.
Kate is a vocal advocate for inclusion in all respects and, as an investor, sees the clear benefits diversity brings to the companies in which she invests. She also believes that everyone should have the opportunity to be their true selves in the workplace. She has seen the progress that is being made in making Fidelity more inclusive and believes everyone has a role to play in progressing that.
Having supported her younger sister in coming out to their very conservative extended family, Kate has seen the personal toll it can take to live as an openly gay person - as well as the happiness and deepened relationships that can ultimately result from the choice to be out and proud. Kate comments: “Everyone, whether gay or straight, discovers that it takes courage to define ourselves, to be an authentic person, and to pursue the life that’s right for us. People around us are full of opinions of what’s the right way to live. But authenticity - being true to ourselves - is a building block of happiness. To me, being an ally is simply responding with admiration to courageous people who are living their lives with authenticity, and being grateful to them for prodding us to not fall into lazy notions of what’s ‘normal’.”