Just before the 2008 global financial crisis, some determined women were beginning to enter the upper echelons of hedge fund management. But in the following years progress stalled. Although many women who launched funds before 2008 remain successful, their numbers have not increased significantly, and some have seen their firms founder. According to a March 2015 report by alternative-assets data provider Preqin, women hold only 10.3 percent of C-suite positions at single-­manager hedge funds and 11.1 percent at funds of hedge funds. A number of factors explain the low numbers, industry executives say. The financial crisis caused a shakeout in...