NETHERLANDS - The €15bn asset manager TKP Investments has been awarded with the first Golden Stiletto Award 2012 by the Dutch Association for Women in Institutional Pensions (VIIP).

The VIIP has established the award for organisations that have made efforts to appoint women on boards and supervisory and management positions in the institutional pensions sector.

At Groningen-based TKP Investments, 33% of the 70-strong staff is female, including Roelie van Wijk, its chief executive.

The company said the number of female workers had increased by 12 percentage points since 2008, adding that 42% of female staff had policymaking jobs.

According to Sybilla Dekker, chairwoman of the jury, having such a number of women in policymaking positions was "quiet unique" at an asset manager.

"We were impressed by how thought-through TKP's considerations are for the connection between diversity and customer-friendliness," she said. "The asset manager deploys diversity as business model."

Van Wijk added that staff and clients at TKP Investments, as well as stakeholder Aegon, valued diversity.

"A good atmosphere, complementary skills and social involvement play a role in customer and staff satisfaction, and this is the most important condition for success," she said.

TKP Investments is a subsidiary of Aegon Investment Management. It manages assets for more than 30 institutional clients through a structured multi-manager investment process.

The other nominated organisations were the €120bn asset manager PGGM, the €115bn healthcare scheme PFZW and FNV Bondgenoten, the largest labour union in the market sector.

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