A panel from November 2018 discusses gender diversity in treasury and finance roles, covering recruitment biases, workplace balance, and inclusion efforts. The speakers share perspectives on progress and ongoing challenges for women in executive positions across industries.
When you talk about women in treasury, it's very interesting because it tends to be also an accountant, by the way, that it's a. It's a women's profession. So what I see is a lot cash management and liquidity management, where really, really have to be nitty gritty details, is done by women.
Yeah.
Whether like the foreign exchange management, for example, or financial markets is more driven by men, that might shift. But it's an interesting development though.
Look, I mean, just within our company, not within treasury in particular, our executive committee have tried to sort of display the need to kind of be a bit more diverse, not just with women, but different cultures. So in my company there's lots of. I think there's like 20 different nationalities in there. I personally like, in my team to have a good balance, we've got pretty much a 50, 50 split between women and men. And you know, I don't. I firmly put more of a thought into kind of like people's capability rather than their sex or their gender or their, you know, where they're from. So, you know, I can see the kind of the P side to it coming a lot more now. Yeah. But, yeah, I think that that will happen not just in treasury, but across all industries and all departments with industries, I think.
So it's not just about being a.
Woman, it's actually, as you say, wider than that as well. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to be in a position where, you know, you've got kind of sort of almost like a positive discrimination. You've got to certain benchmark numbers that you have to be. I just don't think that's helpful for anyone.
I find it sad. It's required, but it is required. And when in 20 years ago I was very anti the sort of force to actually get free quality, I think it should have been the best person for the job. More recently I've heard other people talking and I understand now that you're not going to be able to prove that you're the best person for the job until you've actually got that equality in the first place, because there's a subconscious bias and people recruit like. And so if you have got a generally male environment, subconsciously there's going to be a male. It's going to be a male dominated recruitment process. So sadly, the fight for equality and events like women in trend and the focus of women in treasury is required. Shame, but it is required. I went to an act lunch and I went, you know, the buffet type thing, you're standing around and I went to a table where another lady was standing and we chatted and another lady came over, another lady came over, another lady came over. And all the women in the room, we just focused and we just huddled around one table. And today, funnily enough, same thing happened. There's a group of women sitting together. I'm one of them. And why is that? Why do we feel comfortable with each other? Yeah, why? Yeah, it's just a natural. It's a natural instinct and we shouldn't feel more comfortable with each other. But for some reason that's happened.
Well, I think they are very much. They're great initiatives. They're very much to be encouraged. I think one thing we all need to be realistic about, and most women I know are realistic about this, is that it's not a level playing field. That at the end of the day, as long as women play a bigger role in bringing up kids, a lot of the things that you need to do to have a successful career involve being mobile, being able to travel. And it's. It is. We have to recognize, and I think we do everybody a favor by looking the facts in the face. It is harder for women now. That means that we need to make allowances and we all need to understand it and be more flexible. But at the same time, it is a challenge. So I think it's fantastic people are doing these things, but I think it's naive to think that that's going to make the problem disappear overnight.
Yeah, it's something to be worked at.
And it's going to be very hard work. And at the end of the day, it is difficult.
I'm lucky because I work in an organization where we have a lot of women. My deputy CEO is a woman. The CEO is a man. We previously had a CFO that's a woman. So we do have a lot of women. In my company and in executive positions. It is good to have a diversity in all types, you know, gender, professional education, backgrounds. So it adds value if you have more people from different levels, different backgrounds. So it's the same.
Regarding with women, my experience is actually that there was a very good gender balance in all treasury departments I've worked in. And I've also worked for a couple of female group treasurers in size of the companies, and in my current department, I've got a very good gender split, even a ratio where actually I've got more women than men overall in my team, globally. And I think every company and every department is different. But my experience is that There is actually quite a good gender balance in treasury. But when I in the teams, in the companies that I've worked in. But I do see at conferences or other events that there's maybe more work to be done to attract more women into treasury, but I do think that's happening.
Well, I don't look at whether it's a female or male. I have a team of seven members and all of them are women. So I might not be the right person to talk to in regards to. Why haven't you any women? So no, for me it's having the qualified people and not so much if they're young and old or if they are men and women or they are from. I'm from Denmark. If they're from Denmark, I'm from England and from India. I really don't care. I'm interested in that. We have a project that we buy into together, that we support each other, that we are always in the front end of educating each other as an organization and individually we support each other. And that's most important for me.
I'm on a Women in treasury panel at this conference shortly. I think we've got some stats that we're going to present that at the junior level there's a good gender mix, but the more senior you get, there is a lower gender mix and the older, when you do it by age as well.
Okay.
Apparently, you know, there's less. I don't know. I don't know whether it's where people feel, you know, I may not just be the same in treasury but in any senior position, you know, they balance in, you know, especially if you have family, balancing a career and a family. And it's down to the company to be organisations, be flexible. And I think a lot of big corporates now are waking up to that and having diversity and inclusion programs. It's not just about gender, you know, you look at, you know, in the UK as well, black, Asians and ethnic minorities. There is an underrepresentation of that group as well at a senior level.
