Testosterone Crisis? - Building Gender Balanced Business

October 10, 2008

An article in the sober Financial Times yesterday has suggested an interesting slant on Iceland’s debacle. Bankers up there are wondering if maybe gender had something to do with their problems and have recently appointed two women to lead the new structures being created. Ms Sigfúsdóttir was, since 2003, head of Landsbanki’s corporate banking and Ms Einarsdóttir became head of domestic commercial banking at Glitnir last summer.

“Many have also criticised the young and predominantly male bankers whose ‘eyes became bigger than their stomachs’, as one banker conceded. ‘Now the women are taking over,’ said one government official. ‘It’s typical, the men make the mess and the women come in to clean it up.’ The women are expected to curb the bonus-driven risk-taking culture that has taken hold in Iceland over the past five years.” More…

On that note, I’m off to the Women’s Forum in Deauville, France, where some 1,100 leading women from 88 countries will debate the implications of the crisis. “As the current financial crisis challenges our economies and societies,” says the latest programme update, “the Forum is adapting its organization to address these very exceptional issues.”

I’ll be back soon with news from Deauville