President`s Message- September 2018

ALUMNI NETWORK DINNER | NEW PATRONS | GOVERNMENT EQUALITIES OFFICE | AFME CONFERENCE

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Welcome back after a long and glorious summer! With September upon us, the weather has cooled, but September is looking to be a very busy month, starting with our Annual Awards Alumni event sponsored by Standard Life Aberdeen and with HRH The Countess of Wessex as our special guest speaker.

But before we focus on September, I am delighted to announce our new Patrons who have joined Noel Harwerth, Chair of the UK Export Finance Board and our current Patron, to lend their support to WIBF. Please join me in welcoming:

Dame Shriti Vadera, Chairman of Santander UK
Heather Melville OBE, Director for Strategic Partnerships and Head of Business Inclusion Initiatives for RBS
Michael Cole-Fontayn, Chairman of AFME (The Association of Financial Markets Europe)

July was busy, including an interesting meeting with Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England. We had the opportunity to exchange views on how to achieve better equality of opportunity for women in the financial service sector.

I also met with the Government Equalities Office, and we had a great discussion about their current work on behavioural science to identify challenges to women advancing and ways to help address this. A copy of their recent report is on our Thought Leadership page on the website, or you can access the report via this link. We are looking forward to hosting an event with the Government Equalities Office with a specific focus on behavioural science issues.

On the 8th August, we were delighted to help put together, with HMT, a roundtable discussion focussing on the individual and corporate experiences of the impact of the Women in Finance Charter. A big thank you to those of our members who volunteered participants. We look forward to sharing the video when it is finalised in September. You can see a brief teaser here.

Looking ahead, WIBF are pleased to announce a member discount to the AFME 2nd Annual European Compliance and Legal Conference on 1-2 October at etc venues St Paul’s London. I will be moderating the Culture & Inclusion Panel, with an impressive line-up of speakers. You can find further details here. To Receive a 10% discount please use promo code WIBF.

I look forward to seeing you at some of the amazing events this September.

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