Women Clean Up the Financial Mess Made by Men - Building Gender Balanced Business

With the financial crisis clearly the result of deal-making gone to extremes, many note that more feminine-associated approaches to business might avoid future crises, and some countries are calling in women to clean up the mess that men have left financial institutions in. (Click here for the WOMEN-omics special report on the financial crisis).

• Nadereh Chamlou, a World Bank senior adviser, said: “The current crisis gives us the opportunity to insert gender into the re-writing of the rules. We need new people at the table — people who are not associated with the past.”

• Collette Dunkley, CEO of gender intelligence experts XandY Communications, said: “The problem with finance is that there is too much thrusting individualism and not enough femininity.”

• Women are leading the cleanup of Icelandic banks, which were particularly involved in the credit collapse.

• Professor Tryggvi Thor Herbertsson, CEO of the Nordic investment bank Askar Capital and, until recently, economic adviser to Iceland’s prime minister, said: “What Iceland is trying to portray is that it is taking lower risks because women take fewer risks than men. Women are more cautious and more thoughtful. I think men look more for high returns — which, of course, brings greater risk.”

• Nicola Horlick, CEO of Bramdean Assets, said: “Women have a totally different approach to life. They are less concerned about grabbing as much as they can for themselves and have a greater desire to build firm foundations that will endure. I have absolutely no doubt that the world would have looked totally different if women had been in charge.”

• For proof that a more feminine leadership can help a bank, one expert pointed to the French bank BNP Paribas, whose stock had to that point this year fallen just 20%. 39% of BNP managers are women. By contast, Credit Agricole, the largest retail banking group in France, whose managers are just 16% female, was down by 50%.

The Management Today article