Making it into the top 10 is a second former Aegon/Kames manager who now represents Artemis. Having joined in December 2019, Le was handed responsibility for the Artemis Corporate Bond fund alongside Stephen Snowden, who sits fourth in the rankings. Le is ranked slightly lower due to the crossover with her former Aegon strategies, which bleed a little into the three-year analysis period.

Much like her co-manager, Le revels in market challenges and being alive to opportunities. ‘The fixed income universe is rife with inefficiencies. These provide a rich opportunity set for the active investor,’ she said.

‘We do not know with certainty whether the market will go up or down, but we know that these inefficiencies eventually correct themselves. By taking advantage of those market discrepancies, we can generate outperformance on a consistent basis, without taking outsized risks which make or break fund performance.’

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BENDING WITH THE MARKET

She shares Snowden’s assertion that the removal of central bank support will prove challenging, but she believes leaning heavily into active investing will be hugely beneficial. It is this stance that she recognises as aiding her three-year performance figures, as she was able to adapt to a difficult market.

‘When circumstances change, you must be able to change your view,’ she said. ‘Until 2021, low inflation was very much the name of the game and indeed the fund’s positioning reflected this via having higher interest rate risk.

‘As it became evident that expected interest rates did not reflect higher inflation, the fund trimmed its duration risk, acknowledging that we were entering into a new era for inflationary pressures.’

Le is the highest-ranking female fund manager in this year’s list. In fact, she bucks a trend which saw only male managers listed in the top 10 2021 and the first since Tiffany Hsiao, who was then working for Matthews Asia, and Comgest’s Eva Fornadi broke into the upper echelons in 2020. Having only been officially named as an investment manager in 2019, Le could go on to forge a long career with repeated risk-adjusted returns securing her high rankings in future Euro Stars lists.