Beyond membership: What organisations really get from working with WIBF

What does an organisation really gain from working with Women in Banking & Finance?

At The WIBF Experience, hosted by Nationwide in London on 8 September, organisations considering working with WIBF had the opportunity to hear directly from those already involved. Among them were Nationwide, Moody’s and Redwood Bank – three very different organisations, with different relationships with WIBF and different reasons for investing in them.

Nationwide is a WIBF Sponsor, Moody’s a Partner and Redwood Bank an SME Member. Their experiences demonstrate that there is no single model for getting value from WIBF. What they have in common is something much bigger than access to events or a set number of memberships: the ability to connect their people with development, insight, networks and opportunities beyond the boundaries of their own organisation.

Nationwide: Developing talent through external connection

For Nationwide, the starting point was talent, capability and leadership.

During a period of significant organisational change, the organisation recognised that its people needed development, support and connection more rather than less. Working with WIBF offered access to something that would be difficult to create internally: perspectives, networks and role models drawn from different organisations, career stages and parts of the financial services industry.

As Katy Barker-Cook explained:

“We didn’t see it as a diversity initiative, we saw it as a talent and a capability and a leadership issue.”

External exposure is an important part of that. Meeting people whose careers, experiences and perspectives are different can broaden thinking, challenge assumptions and help individuals see possibilities they might not previously have considered for themselves.

“One of the simplest ways to achieve diversity of thought is by exposing people to the experiences and viewpoints beyond their own organisation.”

And, as Katy observed, there can be an important difference between possessing the skills to progress and having the confidence to use them:

“There’s a huge difference between being capable and believing that you’re capable.”

Nationwide has therefore worked to make its relationship with WIBF an active development opportunity. Alongside attending events, colleagues have had opportunities to host sessions and speak on panels, building confidence and transferable leadership skills outside their normal roles.

A working group within Nationwide has helped activate different elements of the relationship, while initiatives such as coffee roulettes have encouraged connections between colleagues internally.

What began as a finance pilot has expanded across the organisation, with 267 members. Following the acquisition of Virgin Money, WIBF’s regional reach has become particularly relevant, providing opportunities for colleagues across Scotland, the North and elsewhere in the UK.

For Katy and colleague Elle Tucker, a successful relationship also means being able to have open conversations about what works – and what could work better.

“Strong partnerships aren’t built on everybody saying a big, polite ‘yes, everything is wonderful’. They’re built on trust, honesty, learning and a shared commitment to create better outcomes.”

It is a relationship Nationwide sees as long term. Asked whether, knowing what they know now, it is a decision they would make again, Katy’s response was emphatic: “Of course.”

Moody’s: Using external evidence to inform internal strategy

For Moody’s, the value of working with WIBF includes something rather different: access to external evidence, benchmarking and thought leadership that can help inform decisions inside the organisation.

Moody’s has worked with WIBF since 2020 as a Partner. Katy Biffle described how research from WIBF has moved beyond simply being useful content and become something the organisation can apply.

WIBF’s Accelerating Change Together (ACT) research was a particularly important example.

“We literally took the outcome of that big white-paper readout and looked at our strategy.”

Findings from the research have helped Moody’s better understand emerging trends and opportunities across inclusion, recruitment and talent management, while informing the focus of employee-led initiatives.

The ability to compare experiences and outcomes against external research is especially valuable for an organisation committed to evidence-based decision making.

“It helps us to do that benchmarking… that was really important to us.”

But research is only one part of the relationship.

Mentoring gives employees access to people and perspectives outside Moody’s, complementing rather than duplicating internal development opportunities. WIBF’s Personal Excellence Programme has also generated particularly positive engagement, with employees actively requesting more when sessions resonate with them.

As Katy described:

“They’ll be in the chat saying, ‘This is incredible. Can we have a follow-up?’”

Moody’s is using all of its available memberships, with 81 active members, while its wider involvement has included awards sponsorship, webinars, events, speaking opportunities and thought leadership.

That creates a two-way relationship. Moody’s people can benefit from external expertise and perspectives while also contributing their own knowledge and experience to the wider WIBF community.

Redwood Bank: Giving an SME access to opportunities it couldn’t build alone

For Jina Kim of Redwood Bank, the value proposition looks different again.

Redwood is an SME with around 150 employees. It shares many of the talent and leadership ambitions of much larger financial services organisations, but does not necessarily have the same resources to build extensive development programmes internally.

As an SME Member of WIBF, it can access much of that wider infrastructure.

“We may have the same ambitions for our people, but not always have the same budget or dedicated internal development programmes. That’s where WIBF has been incredibly valuable to us.”

Through WIBF, Redwood can offer colleagues high-quality content and speakers, mentoring opportunities, development programmes and professional networks that would otherwise be difficult for a smaller organisation to reproduce.

Accessibility is an important part of that value. Jina highlighted virtual lunchtime sessions in particular: employees can access meaningful development without substantial travel or time away from their working day, alongside opportunities to meet people face-to-face at in-person events.

And the subjects reflect the challenges people are navigating in their careers now – whether building professional networks, understanding AI, developing confidence or reconsidering what success means to them.

“People want to learn and people want to grow, and WIBF definitely offers practical tools to do that.”

For Redwood, this also connects to its commitment as a Women in Finance Charter signatory. Improving representation is not simply about reaching a numerical target; it requires a sustainable pipeline of women with the confidence, skills and ambition to become future leaders.

“Achieving a target is one thing; sustaining and growing diverse leadership is another. Our partnership with WIBF helps us support that objective.”

The connections created through WIBF can have unexpected benefits too. Through relationships developed within the network, Redwood was able to secure former BBC presenters for its first internal women’s conference, helping it create an event that generated strong engagement from colleagues and senior leadership.

Three organisations, three different reasons to engage

Nationwide, Moody’s and Redwood Bank are very different organisations, and their relationships with WIBF are different too.

For Nationwide, sponsorship is helping create external connections and leadership opportunities for its people. For Moody’s, partnership provides access to evidence, perspectives and expertise that can feed into organisational thinking as well as employee development. For Redwood, SME Membership opens up high-quality development and networking opportunities that would be difficult to create independently.

But there is a striking common thread.

The strongest value they describe isn’t simply “membership”. It is what access to the wider WIBF community enables.

It can be an employee speaking on a panel for the first time. A mentor offering a perspective they would not encounter inside their own organisation. Research prompting an employer to examine an internal policy. A virtual session giving someone practical tools they can use immediately. Or a conversation with somebody from another organisation that changes how an individual thinks about what might be possible in their own career.

Taken together, those opportunities create something that even large employers can find difficult to reproduce within their own walls: an external ecosystem of talent, leadership, insight, development and connection.

And because every organisation is different, working with WIBF is not about fitting employers into a single model. It starts with understanding the organisation, its people and what it wants to achieve – and building the relationship from there.

Click here to find out more about how your organisation can work with WIBF or email Nicky.King@wibf.org.uk or Ras.Gohil@wibf.org.uk.