Transforming Capital for the Next Era 2025

Although global investable wealth remains concentrated in a few regions, the upwards trajectory is clear. The growing share of wealth held by women presents a unique opportunity to reshape the flow of capital worldwide. Even in places where women’s wealth is not yet large in absolute terms, the influence of investors in wealthier regions can extend far beyond their borders. As capital increasingly moves across markets, this shift in who holds and allocates wealth has the potential to redefine investment norms and priorities, creating ripple effects that shape economic opportunities and standards globally. To lay out the baseline case, this paper assumes that women do not have different investment preferences from men; their presence in the market simply implies a wider range of opportunity and risk perception. However, recent research suggests that women may indeed have systematically different investment criteria, which would imply their market presence could have an even larger impact on the nature of capital flows.2 As women’s ownership expands, the question shifts from how much wealth to how that wealth ultimately diversifies opportunities and expands markets. Nowhere is that power clearer than in private markets, where allocators decide which technologies, teams and business models scale. The great wealth transfer, therefore, is not just a balance-sheet shift; it can be a realignment of decision-making power that can reshape capital formation. If employed in the right way, the result will be a wider investable frontier due to a more diverse group of investors perceiving more opportunities and risks, resulting in a more diverse group of founders, a wider range of products meeting unmet needs and more resilient value for investors and society alike.1.1 Why private markets matter now Simplified capital flows in the private market FIGURE 2 Capital holders Own wealth or assets Represents capital origin Represents capital allocation Represents capital use Capital flow Virtuous cycle: capital recipients may become capital holders Returning invested capital plus profitsInstitutional -Pension funds -Insurance companies -Sovereign funds -Public or academic endowments/foundationsCapital providers (limited partners) Pool and commit capital to fundsNon-institutional -High-net-worth individuals -Family offices -Corporations Capital deployers (general partners) Invest and manage capital in assetsPrivate equity and venture capital Other alternative investment Capital recipients Use capital to create valuePublic market exits Private-market exits Note: In this figure, the terms “capital holders”, “capital providers”, “capital deployers” and “capital recipients” are used to describe the main functions through which money flows in private markets. These simplified labels correspond to different roles in the investment chain – where capital providers represent limited partners (LPs) and capital deployers represent general partners (GPs). This illustration offers a simplified, representative view of how money moves from capital holders to the recipients of capital. Capital is first pooled and managed by capital providers (LPs), a term used here to emphasize their role in supplying and committing capital within the system. LPs include institutional investors such as pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds and public or academic endowments, as well as non-institutional investors such as family offices, corporations and high-net-worth individuals. While institutional LPs allocate capital through formal fiduciary structures, non-institutional LPs often exercise greater discretion and flexibility over their commitments. These capital providers entrust capital deployers (GPs) to raise and manage funds on their behalf. GPs operate across a wide range of alternative investment strategies, but this illustration focuses specifically on private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) – the strategies that invest directly in corporate equity and are most central to this capital-formation cycle. The resulting capital recipients, entrepreneurs and companies that receive these investments apply the capital to grow their businesses, generating value and return. Exit pathways generally fall into two categories: public-market exits, known as initial public offerings (IPOs), and private-market exits, where ownership shifts from one private actor to another. Over time, as these companies mature, generate returns or undergo liquidity events, capital recipients may themselves become new capital holders, re-entering and replenishing the broader investment ecosystem. Source: World Economic Forum Transforming Capital for the Next Era: Gender Parity and the Expansion of the Investable Frontier 6