Diane Côté was appointed Chief Risk Officer for the London Stock Exchange Group and joined its Executive Team in June 2013. She was previously Aviva’s Chief Audit Officer before going on to become Aviva Plc’s Chief Finance Operations Officer. Diane has many years’ experience holding senior positions within Aviva and other leading organisations, including Standard Life Assurance.
“…we must continue to challenge the status quo and send a strong and consistent message about workplace equality and diversity…”
Supporting greater equality in the City
As the world becomes more global and interconnected, individuals, businesses and governments are recognising the importance of diversity and inclusion in order to succeed in the 21st century. Promoting diversity not only has a positive cultural value, it also has a key economic role, fostering innovation, entrepreneurship, better corporate governance and technological advancement. Sitting at the heart of London’s financial centre, London Stock Exchange supports greater equality in the City.
Women Inspired Network in London, Milan, New York, Paris and Colombo
We are committed to inspiring and growing female talent within our organisation and within the City, which is why we launched our Women Inspired Network (WIN) earlier this year. WIN was created to help LSEG better connect our global workforce by supporting our female employees, helping them to develop their careers, share ideas and promote success. WIN has now been launched in nearly all of our major global offices: London; Milan; New York; Paris and Colombo.
Through a mixture of inspiring and informative internal and external events, debates, lectures and networking receptions, we are encouraging the collaboration and sharing of ideas within our business, helping to inspire the next generation of women in senior management roles.
There is no doubt discussion around female employment and development in the City has become widespread and this is helping the workplace become more diverse. Debates have spurred lobby groups, support networks and associations to help expand opportunities in industries traditionally dominated by men.
A Government report by Lord Davies calling for an increase in female representation in company boardrooms has been successful but the number of women in senior positions in the City still needs to improve in order to achieve gender-balanced boardrooms in the future.
Supporting other initiatives championing women
To support and promote the success of women in the workplace we recently sponsored the Asian Women of Achievement Awards and the Women of the Future Awards, both founded by Pinky Lilani OBE. Both awards recognise the often unsung achievements of young promising or already accomplished and extremely talented women in fields as diverse as business, the arts, community work and sport.
Another prominent group is 100 Women in Hedge Funds, who opened trading on our markets earlier this year. Their mission is to reach, inspire and support the young women who will become the pipeline for future leadership in the hedge fund industry. In fact throughout 2015, to help promote their cause, they have been opening trading on various global stock exchanges across the world including, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Chicago, New York, Toronto, as well as London.
Miriam Gonzalez Durantez delivered an inspiring speech to the young school girls who were guests of London Stock Exchange for the morning. Her organisation – Inspiring Women – asks professional women to talk at schools to teenage girls about their jobs, allowing them to hear about a variety of possible careers and encouraging them to believe that they too can be successful in the future.
Supporting gender diversity to support the promotion of other forms of diversity
Encouraging gender diversity in the workplace also supports the promotion of other forms of diversity. Opportunities in the City and throughout the UK need to be promoted to people from all backgrounds.
This year AIM, our growth market for ambitious small and medium sized businesses, celebrated its twentieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, and with the support of the UK Government, we expanded our efforts to encourage job opportunities in the City. At the anniversary dinner, the Business Secretary, Sajid Javid MP, announced a new scheme to place apprentices in Small and Medium sized enterprises and within the AIM community, highlighting the benefits of bringing together innovative new companies that are the future of British business, and the hardworking young apprentices who are the future of the British workforce.
The scheme will be run by the educational charity City Gateway, who alongside training and employment programmes, run award winning youth centres and services for at risk young people, programmes to support families in need and social enterprises to serve the local community.
Charities such as City Gateway are not acting alone. The Chancellor’s most recent Budget also announced a new apprenticeship levy funded by large employers, which aims to create three million new apprenticeships by 2020. And it outlined future plans for all young people between the ages of 18 to 21, who are not in education or in employment, requiring them to apply for an apprenticeship or traineeship.
Government, businesses and charities working together to drive inclusion
Progress towards greater diversity in the workplace is tangible. The Government, businesses and charities are working together to drive inclusion and stimulate innovation and business success. The female employment rate reached 67.2% in 2013, the highest since the Office for National Statistics’ records began. And in the 2013 to 2014 academic year, there were 440,000 apprenticeship starts in England, according to a House of Commons report.
But we must continue to challenge the status quo and send a strong and consistent message about workplace equality and diversity. Only our combined and continued efforts will allow our business environment to truly reflect the modern and interconnected world we live in. Gender diversity is not only a social imperative, it makes economic sense.
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