Why Isn't Gender Diversity More Of An Issue For The Banks? - Building Gender Balanced Business

“Sometimes we have to take scary methods in order to achieve worthwhile results,” UK Equalities Minister Harriet Harman told an audience at a meeting of the Fawcett Society, a body that campaigns for equality between men and women.

At this meeting in early May, she pointed in particular at the need to encourage banks to raise the proportion of women in middle and senior management.

Equalities Bill

Harman is trying to push the Equalities Bill through the UK Parliament at a time when her government is at its lowest ebb. Faced with a major scandal around MP’s expenses and the wider problem of spiralling government debt amidst the near collapse of the global financial system, Harman is hoping to seize the moment to push for change.

There is opposition to the Bill from the business community, particularly coming at a time when many companies are fighting for survival. And one of Harman’s biggest obstacles is sitting across the Cabinet table – Business Secretary Lord Mandelson.

The End to the Pay Gap?

But if Harman does get the Bill through, companies may find that they have to own up about the different salaries they pay their male and female employees.

They will also be able to choose to hire a woman (or someone from another underrepresented group) over other candidates of equal stature without fear of being sued for discrimination.

Positive Action

Positive discrimination is generally disliked by business people, including many women, who fear it will raise doubts about the merit of a particular candidate.

But in one of our interviews, Piyush Gupta, CEO of South East Asia Pacific, Citibank told us: “Look, if you’re a smart business manager and you know you have to hire a certain number of women, you’re going to make absolutely sure that you don’t hire lemons. Doing so would only hurt your business.”

WEB Conference, London

On Tuesday, May 12th, the BBC Newsnight anchor Kirsty Wark asked a panel of businesspeople the question of the moment – would it have made a difference if banks had had more women at the top? She was moderating a discussion at the Women in European Business Conference 2009, organised by the women’s network of Deutsche Bank.

The theme was “The Art of Possibility” and 2000 people, mostly women, filled the seats of a theatre auditorium at the Barbican Centre in Silk Street, close to the City of London.

Dr. Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank AG said in his introduction that, “a diverse team is a smarter team.” He had seen this for himself during two major crises of recent times: September 11 and the present financial mess. In both cases, the way women responded had impressed him. The bank was therefore working to improve the representation of women at the top. (Presently, however, there are no women on the Management Board or the Group Executive Committee at Deutsche Bank).

Did Men Cause the Mess?

When asked directly by Wark, one of the male panellists Liam Kane, Chief Executive of the East London Business Alliance, did agree that things may not have turned out so badly if more banks had a better balance of men and women at the top. However, neither he nor the other panel members took up the opportunity to explore the issue further.

Both of the men on the panel – Kane and David Tyler, Chairman, Logica plc – agreed that women brought fresh qualities to a management team such as empathy and a willingness to ask questions. But they did not link this realisation to the question of improved decision-making at the top levels of companies in the financial sector.