By Jo Harris, Sales Director, Siemens Financial Services, UK Commercial Finance
The current gender imbalance in business is glaring. Only five of the FTSE 100 have a female CEO. Only 41 of the Fortune 500 are run by a woman[i].
Across the FTSE 100, 36.2% of board seats are held by women, with 33.2% across the FTSE 250 and 34.3% across the FTSE 350. However, just 21.5% of FTSE 350 executive committee positions were held by women. Yet gender diversity is a business benefit, with studies noting that male dominated boards tend to turn in lower commercial performance[ii].
A watershed report series from McKinsey[iii] has demonstrated that gender- and racially-diverse boards are more profitable. Why, then, are too few companies still failing to address the diversity issue even more urgently and seriously… when diversity at board level merits being a business objective and a driver of change?
Financial Services – A Closer Look
According to research from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) [iv], gender diversity is low at the industry level overall with women making up just around 17% of FCA-approved individuals. Such lack of progress is restricting the talent pool and – ultimately – business sustainability because people are attracted by a culture of fairness, choice and meritocracy.
Since the Women in Finance Charter was launched by the Treasury in 2016, more than 330 firms across the industry have committed to implementing its recommendations. Yet despite the scrutiny and public commitments to evolve, financial services have seen only modest improvement in gender diversity. The median share of female senior managers in major institutions sits at 19% (range: 3%-40%). In investment management organisations, this rises to 26%. However, there is evidence to suggest that women in senior positions at UK financial firms tend to represent support functions, rather than strategic or profit-generating ones[v].
There are few available statistics specifically for the asset finance industry and it is hoped that others in the industry will use the springboard of this initiative to investigate the subject further.
We analysed the UK players in asset finance and leasing, assessing the representation of women at the most senior level. The key findings are:
| · 20.1% of board directors in the asset finance and leasing industry are women
· 43% of asset finance providers’ boards have no women members · Where women are represented at board level, the range of representation is 13%-50% |
This reveals that the financial services industry as a whole is behind the curve in women’s representation, and that the asset finance and leasing industry is broadly consistent with this state of affairs.
So what are some of the key initiatives and changes – especially attitudinal – which may help to move the dial and address the imbalance?
Change #1 – More Realistic Role Models
Organisations have often featured ‘alpha female’ super-women role models who have pursued stellar careers while also having large families. However, for most aspiring female businesspeople, these examples are neither realistic nor attractive. There is a need for more realistic and representative senior role models to be identified and their story communicated, talking about experiences of life and professional development that younger women can identify with, juggling home commitment with work. More realistic role models will have better experiences to pass on to aspiring women candidates.
Change #2 – Reshape Senior Roles
Attention is needed to enable senior career opportunities for a more diverse range of candidates, particularly women. Most serious senior roles, and the expectations around them, still conform to outdated male stereotypes. The issue is not that senior women should work less, but that the time and place of that highly committed senior work should be more flexible. The shape of senior roles is ripe for a re-think and – more importantly – demonstrable action.
Change #3 – Train Men: not just Women
An increasing number of firms have professional programmes to help women to achieve their leadership potential. These are of enormous value but male peers and decision makers also need training – to develop their skills in recognising and appreciating women’s capabilities and talents, and adjusting their own behaviours and attitudes to working in an increasingly diverse environment. It is the responsibility of the organisation to recognise the culture change needed and the support that the incumbent male cohort requires, so that everyone’s attitudes, outlook and actions are helped to move towards new ways of working.
Conclusion
This short commentary makes one early step to drive increased levels of women’s senior representation in the asset finance and leasing industry. I hope that all businesses within the asset finance sector keep up the pressure to seek every means of increasing the percentage of talented women leaders sitting in boardrooms, as well as ensuring a good future feed from middle management roles.
All of us – men and women – should not rest until an equal gender balance at every level in the sector is so normal, that we all wonder how the world could ever have been different.
[i] Business Insider, There are now more women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies than ever before — but the numbers are still distressingly low, 30 Nov 2020
[ii] CBR, Male dominated boards massively underperform, 27 Jul 2020
[iii] McKinsey, Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters, 19 May 2020
[iv] FCA, Gender diversity in UK financial services, Nov 2019
[v] The Female FTSE Board Report, 2017
