IFS Skillnet was delighted to sponsor yesterday’s Women in Finance Charter: Building a Community of Best Practice event. There was a very engaging panel discussion with Dr Helen Russell, (ESRI) Norma Conway, (PTSB) and Kevin Foley, (CNP Santander) moderated by Patricia Callan, (FSI).

Breakout Session: Building Capabilities

Participants were asked to discuss two key questions:
1. What works within their financial services organisations to improve gender balance.
2. Barriers preventing this and best practice.

Key takeaways from the event included:

*The importance of senior leadership buy in, a top-down approach to improving gender balance,
*Not only the importance of having generous protective leave policies (maternity/paternity among others) but seeing uptake of these policies by all genders and levels throughout the organisation, as well as moving from statistics to data.