Hope Capital | Hope Capital signs Women in Finance Charter.
Hope Capital signs Women in Finance Charter.
Bridging lender Hope Capital has today signed the Women in Finance Charter committing to help make financial services a more balanced and fair industry to work in.
Hope Capital has done more than just set targets for what it aims to achieve – it has exceeded them already. It recently made extra female appointments to its senior management team and so has already exceeded its own targets by having reached the magic number of 50% of its board comprising females, while 75% of its staff are female. This drive for gender diversity is coming from the very top, with CEO Jonathan Sealey taking responsibility for making sure the lender hits its targets.
At a gender diversity session held recently at the Finance Professionals Show, policy adviser on Women in Finance & Banking for HM Treasury, Deborah Ejim-McCubbin said “The proportion of women [at senior levels in financial service] is continuing to grow but slowly” she went on to say that, “a gender balance is not only good for firms themselves but good for their customers” as it makes firms more representative of their customer base.
Other panel representatives from Leeds Building Society and One Savings Bank said that they are already starting to see wider positive effects across their businesses since they signed up to the charter.
"We are proud of the fact that we already have an equal split of men and women on our senior management team and that 70% of our staff are female, including underwriters, case writers and BDMs."
Hope Capital has bucked what was described by the diversity panel as “the inertia in the market” to sign up to the charter now. After the initial wave of companies committing to the Charter, this has slowed down. This reluctance to sign up was believed to be because firms were worried they wouldn’t meet the targets – although all diversity targets are set by each firm itself.