President`s Message – November 2018

2019 WIBF Awards for Achievement Nominatons now open

I am very much looking forward to November with a terrific range of events planned, and of course the opportunity to start nominating for the 2019 Awards for Achievement.  This is your chance to recognise and celebrate the amazing talent and contributions of your female colleagues, and also to identify our male champions, who are helping to drive real change and equality of opportunity.   With five categories to choose from, we look forward to seeing some terrific nominations soon!

It is also a great pleasure for me to announce our new patron, Iris Bohnet, author of “What Works: Gender Equality by Design”, a professor and author at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who also serves on the board of directors of Credit Suisse Group,and is a member of the Global Agenda Council on Behavior of the World Economic Forum.  We are delighted  Iris is able to join our current patrons including Noel Harwerth, Michael Cole Fontayne, Heather Melville OBE and Baroness Shriti Vadera.

October was a busy month, and while some of us may have been focussing on the cyber security theme, others were considering the impact of menopause, a reality of every woman`s life, on her career.  I was pleased to offer some comments on a Sky News report on this important topic on World Menopause Day, with the realization that most employers are wholly unequipped to support their employees, many of whom are at the top of their career, during this life change.  I would encourage each of you to find our more about the impacts of menopause on women and their careers, and encourage your firms to better understand this important issue.

I hope that you are inspired, challenged and enlightened by the range of events taking place in November at WIBF, and a thank you to our hosts as ever.

Vivienne Artz
President, Women in Banking and Finance