Flurry Of Financial Firms Shout Gender Equality Aims

Robbie Lawther

19 March 2018

A number of banking and wealth management firms have signed up to the Women in Finance Charter. This comes at a time when the inancial industry is making more noise about efforts to improve gender equality in the sector.

The companies signing the charter are , the UK Treasury said in a statement.

More than 200 firms have signed the Charter and over 650,000 employees in the UK are covered by its plan to tackle gender inequality in financial services.

The UK Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter asks financial services firms to commit to four industry actions to prepare their female talent for leadership positions.

By signing the Charter, financial services firms commit to implementing the following:

1. Have one member of the senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender and diversity and inclusion;
2. Set internal targets for gender diversity within senior management;
3. Publish progress reports yearly against those targets; and
4. Intend to ensure that senior executive team pay is linked to delivery against those internal targets on gender diversity.

The advancement of women in the workplace – and more broadly the state of diversity at our firm – is top of mind for all of us,” said Lloyd Blankfein and David Solomon, chief executive and chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, respectively, during an email to staff. “While we have made progress in recent years on women’s representation and ethnic and racial diversity, there is still significant progress to be made.”

Blankfein and Solomon added: “Equality of pay between women and men is also generating important focus around the world. At Goldman Sachs we pay women and men in similar roles with similar performance equally. However, the real issue for our firm and many corporations is the under-representation of women and diverse professionals both in magnitude and levels of seniority. We have made some progress, but we have significant work to do, and we, as leaders of our firm, are committed to doing this critical work.”

Recently, this publication interviewed fellow Women in Finance Charter pledger, RBC Wealth Management, about the reasons why the sector needs more women.