Pledge to boost number of women leaders in FIs

Singapore

A GROUP of male senior leaders of some financial institutions in Singapore have pledged to increase the proportion of women in senior leadership roles at their workplace.

Nineteen of them, representing 15 financial institutions, have pledged to achieve 30 per cent of women in senior leadership roles in Singapore by 2020.

It was an initiative by Financial Women's Association of Singapore (FWA) as part of its annual International Women's Day (IWD) celebrations held at Standard Chartered Bank on March 6.

The male champions include DBS Bank chief executive Piyush Gupta, Prudential Singapore chief executive Wilfred Blackburn and BlackRock Singapore country head Kevin Hardy, among others.

Other institutions are IHS Markit, Standard Chartered Bank, National Australia Bank, Arisaig Partners, NN Investment Partners, Aberdeen Asset Management, Invesco Asset Management, Fullerton Fund Management, Mastercard, Visa Worldwide, PwC and HSBC Insurance.

FWA events and male champions chairwoman Low Chin Loo said: "The pledge is groundbreaking in many ways for Singapore's financial industry - financial institutions here are looking more closely at building truly diverse and inclusive workplaces to track and measure this progress."

FWA, which champions gender diversity and inclusion in the workplace, first introduced the male champion initiative two years ago on IWD.

The brainchild of mentees from FWA's Mentoring Programme, it aims to engage men, who understand the demands of work and family that women face and are supportive of their pursuit of success on both fronts.

Currently, there are 35 male champions representing 29 financial institutions committed to the cause of gender balance at the senior levels.

One of them, head of emerging markets equity at NN Investment Partners Ashish Goyal felt it was a worthwhile commitment.

He said: "We can all do our part to push the envelope on this strategically important agenda."

Some pledging institutions are already at or have surpassed 30 per cent of women in senior leadership roles, such as DBS Bank, Fullerton Fund Management and Prudential.

President of FWA Fiona Yik said: "We wanted to do something impactful in our industry, a bold initiative that signifies commitment and change for the future."