Anne Clarke Wolff launched women-owned investment bank Independence Point Advisors with the aim of making dealmaking more inclusive and offering a different perspective on deals that were primarily carried out by white men. 

It was 2021 and Clarke Wolff, a 30-year veteran of the banking industry, was also looking to capitalise on a renewed push by the sector to become more diverse — the revival of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 had led Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, HSBC and other banks to unveil ambitious new targets for boosting ethnic and gender representation in their ranks.