Finance Monthly July 2019 Edition

WHY DO WOMEN IN FINANCE GET STUCK IN THE QUAGMIRE OF In the finance sector, most major organisations have introduced a range of initiatives to encourage more women into leadership roles. Despite this, progress remains painfully slow. Jenny Straumers delves into the reasons behind it and offers her tips on what organisations can do to address the issue. n 2017, the SKEMA Business School Observatory on the Feminisation of Companies published its Gender diversity in the banking industry report, looking at female representation in 71 banks across 20 countries. The report found that although women make up 52% of global banking workers, they average only 38% of middle managers and 16% of executive leaders. The researchers suggest that women in banking face a ‘double glass ceiling’ – while reaching the middle management tier can be challenging, breaking through to more senior leadership roles can be tougher still. Research from the FT also highlights that although the majority of junior staff working in financial services are women, only one in four reaches a senior role. The research demonstrates that the proportion of women at each level plunges dramatically as women move up through the ranks. In general, the FT concludes, progress has been painfully slow. Some representative comments from women interviewed for this research include, “if all your bosses are men there isn’t much to aspire to” and “men are better at self-promotion”. In 2016 Jayne-Anne Gadhia, CEO of Virgin Money, led a government review into the representation of women in senior management in the finance sector. Her report, Empowering Productivity: Harnessing the Talents of Women in Financial Services, revealed that only 14% of executive jobs were held by women. Gadhia’s report identified a ‘permafrost’ in middle management - women are either failing to progress or simply leaving. Although there is a widespread assumption that many women put their careers on hold to focus on family, the research found that women without family commitments were just as likely to stick in middle management or to walk away. Gadhia suggested that the issue is a complex one and the solution lies in cultural change. There is some evidence that women are more reluctant than men to put themselves forward for leadership roles. And even in our age of quotas and women in leadership initiatives, I Jenny Straumers, Lead Consultant at Cirrus www.cirrus-connect.com MIDDLE MANAGEMENT? 32 www.finance-monthly.com WOMEN IN FINANCE - MIDDLE MANAGEMENT