The HM Treasury's Women in Finance Charter reflects the Government’s aspiration to see gender balance at all levels across financial services firms. It sets out how to implement the recommendations of the review: Empowering Productivity: harnessing the talents of women in financial services - undertaken by Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the chief executive officer of Virgin Money.
By signing the Charter the CII have pledged to promote gender diversity by:
• having one member of the senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion;
• setting internal targets for gender diversity in senior management;
• publishing progress annually against these targets in reports on the CII website; and
• having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity.
Sian Fisher, CEO of the CII, said: "The CII's commitment to enhancing women's opportunities in the insurance profession is at the forefront of our efforts. A diverse workforce is the key to a customer focused and well balanced profession. Yet it could be argued we are lagging behind others in making a gender balanced workforce a priority. This attitude needs to change; we need to be doing more to take action.
"The HM's Treasury's Charter is a positive step towards achieving a gender balanced workforce and I encourage other employers in the profession to follow suit and pledge."
Jayne-Anne Gadhia, CEO of Virgin Money, said: "The report (Empowering Productivity: harnessing the talents of women in financial services) is about creating the right condition in firms to enable women to progress if they want to. And I believe our proposals will make a significant difference in time but they do not represent a magic bullet – I don’t think there is one.
But I do believe they will make an important contribution towards getting firms to take this issue seriously and will act as a catalyst for far reaching culture change within organisations."
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