WIBF President – new Champion for Women programme | 2016 WIBF charity named

Happy new year to all WIBF members. I look forward to a year of celebrating your achievements and to WIBF providing the inspiration, information and guidance that you need for success in your career.

“I am delighted to start the year by announcing that Rosa – the UK fund for women and girls, will once again be the WIBF charity of the year, benefitting from the proceeds of the gala raffle at the Awards for Achievement Luncheon. Rosa’s aim of empowering women aligns so well with WIBF aims that a longer-term collaboration will be an inspiring partnership.
Jan Floyd Douglass, Chair, Rosa, said:

“Rosa’s partnership with WIBF has been invaluable in raising much needed funding to support women’s organisations and awareness of the work they do. Without this, we can’t hope to achieve full gender equality in the UK. We’re absolutely thrilled to be working together with WIBF for another year – and look forward to reaching many more women as a result.”

The latest BRUIN Financial ‘Women in Financial Institutions’ (WiFI) Index highlighted how we, as an industry, are progressing with equality and diversity – we are making progress but neither enough nor quickly enough. The index showed a 2% increase in the representation of women at interview, but that men were still 7% more likely to receive a job offer. The good news was that women receive greater salary increases when moving jobs by comparison to men, but the gender pay gap has remained consistent at 18%.

The new season of our ever-popular Personal Excellence Programme kicks off this month – details of all workshops available here – and the 2016 programme has been carefully curated to include a wide range of subjects and facilitators. The Personal Excellence Programme currently runs in London and Edinburgh.
WIBF Edinburgh, Co-chair, Suzanne Reynolds, said, “We have designed the Edinburgh 2016 PEP to take into account our members’ feedback on the particular topics that they are grappling with and where they see most developmental value.”

Our new Champion for Women programme will launch with an impressive industry discussion panel event on Wednesday 27th January, 6.30-9pm, at the University Women’s Club, London. On the panel will be

• Heather Melville (Director for Strategic Partnerships, RBS)
• Chris Turpin (Managing Director, EMEA First State Investments)
• Vanessa Vallely (Founder, WeAreTheCity) and
• Erica Handling (General Counsel, Blackrock)

The discussion will be followed by a drinks and canapé reception.

It is also exciting times for the WIBF magazine. WIBF’s highly-regarded magazine is being redesigned and rebranded. Following a review of the magazine a new designer has been chosen. Work will soon begin in earnest for the first new-look, new-content magazine to be ready for the 1st May 2016. It will be worth the wait.

What a lot to look forward to in 2016! Wishing you all a happy and successful new year.”