Women in Finance

In March 2016, Jayne Anne Gadhia, CEO of Virgin Money led a review on behalf of HM Treasury into the need for a balanced workforce after looking at a representation of women in senior leadership roles in the Financial Services industry.

Gadhia’s report found that:

Women made up 23% of boards at City firms but only 14% of executive committees.
The pay gap between men and women is worse in financial services than in any other sector, with a woman earning 60p for every £1 that a man earns.
Just 6% of CEOs in the financial services sector are women.

In response to this, HM Treasury launched the ‘Women in Finance’ Charter. This is a pledge for gender balance across financial services – we became a signatory in July 2018.

The Charter

The Charter commits firms to support the progression of women into senior roles in the financial services sector by focusing on the executive pipeline and the mid-tier level and by signing the charter, we have committed to the following;

We will appoint one member of the team who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion
We will set and publish internal targets for gender diversity in senior management
We will publish our progress annually against these targets to support the transparency and accountability needed to drive change

Our Targets

Our actions to support the charter during the next 12 months

Supporting hiring managers

We will provide hiring managers with a diverse list of candidates and anonymous profiles ensuring the positions are decided on merit alone.

Alongside this, we will implement mixed gender interview panels to remove any possibility of gender bias where appropriate.

Removing barriers

We will actively promote current senior female leaders as role models in the business and encourage discussion with them to promote and inspire a career in financial services.

We will enhance the skills of our future business leaders through gender balanced development programmes and courses.