Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary - 43

Modified From Opportunity to Legacy:
Celebrating the First Fifty Years

<< PROFILE

Annual Report, 1993
Shareholders in the Oppenheimer Fund found good news in
the 1993 annual report. The total return at net asset value for
the one-year period ending June 30 was 13.33%, in line with the
Standard & Poor's 500 Index. President Donald Spiro reported
that shares had enjoyed solid capital appreciation as well, a
principal objective of the Fund. One concern fund managers
were taking into consideration in 1993 was possible ramifications of the Clinton administration's plans to reform the health
care industry. Still, they increased holdings in health care-related stocks of certain well-managed
companies, and also increased investments in foreign markets, anticipating that the declining interest rates at that time would encourage economic growth. n

WOMEN & INVESTING
Probably no marketing campaign has more uniquely
defined OppenheimerFunds than its Women &
InvestingSM initiative, which played out on multiple
levels. On the one hand, the effort had a deep meaning internally. Wall Street has traditionally been a
male-dominated culture, but around 20 years ago
the Company started to bring increasing numbers
of women into the business. "Nearly half our senior
officers were women," said Fossel. "When competitors wondered how we kept gaining market share,
I told them a lot was service and performance but
we're hiring talent you aren't hiring - women."
The campaign also had an impact beyond the
Company, which chose - quite consciously -
to put a female face on the investor. As Bridget
Macaskill, who was president at the time, explained,
"This campaign came out of research that we did
where we were shocked to find how few women who
had serious jobs really understood how to manage
their own money. They tended to either do nothing
or delegate it to somebody else."
In 1992 OppenheimerFunds mounted a broad-

based campaign that involved educational efforts,
advertising, and media outreach. (Money magazine, for instance, did an early piece that triggered
significant interest.) The Company also started a
speakers bureau, providing free expert speakers to
many women's organizations, from garden clubs to
alumnae groups. This initiative was revolutionary for
a financial services company, but OppenheimerFunds
saw it as more than a marketing campaign. The
bigger driver was simply that, at many levels in the
Company, it was perceived as the right thing to do.
Key, too, to the OppenheimerFunds initiative
was the Company's effort to change the way financial advisors interacted with female customers. The
research - still ongoing - helped advisors understand what matters to women. "We were the first to
really get involved in looking at the role of women
and investing, and that is such an important part of
the Company's history," said Ellen Schoenfeld, vice
president and director of educational initiatives.
From improving communications with female
investors to launching innovative products like
Oppenheimer Strategic Income Fund, the Company
was well positioned to succeed under its new ownership arrangement. The many changes that took place
from 1987 to 1994 left OppenheimerFunds stronger, much larger, and better prepared for the era of
immense growth that would take place later in the
1990s. The Company had grown, but it nonetheless
remained entrepreneurial at its core. n
Balancing innovative thinking and an entrepreneurial spirit with an
unwavering commitment to invest the right way for shareholders
would continue to define the Firm.

1992
Women & InvestingSM initiative is launched to educate
women about their unique financial needs; it brings
increasing numbers of women into the world of investing.

Democrat Bill Clinton defeats incumbent George H. W. Bush
to become the 42nd president of the United States.

1992

A CEO Leading
the Industry:
Bridget Macaskill
1992

During the Wall Street of the 1980s
and 1990s, Bridget Macaskill forged her own path at
OppenheimerFunds as one of the industry's top senior
women executives.
Since joining the firm in 1983, Macaskill held a series
of leadership roles. Initially, she oversaw several key
aspects of the organization, with a focus on marketing, strategy, and business plan execution. She later
rose through the ranks, eventually being appointed
President in 1991, Chief Executive Officer in 1995, and
later Chairman of OppenheimerFunds.
Macaskill's legacy at OppenheimerFunds has been
significant; most notably, she understood early the
influence that women would have in the workplace
and, particularly, in the asset management marketplace.
She was credited with creating OppenheimerFunds'
Women & InvestingSM program, dedicated to educating women about the need to take charge of their personal finances. In 1992, she commissioned a pioneering
study of women and investing, whose findings were
covered in the media.
"Our survey points to an era of much broader
financial involvement for women in this country, who
are increasingly interested in finances . ... The overwhelming majority of women - 82% in our survey
- believe that they will be solely responsible for their
financial well-being at some point in their lives. That's
why we offer information that is especially geared to
women's needs and investing interests," Macaskill told
Money magazine. n

1987-1994 Entrepreneurial Innovation

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Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary

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