Today, we once again are celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD) and the responses we have had from across the industry to our campaign to highlight and celebrate the role of women in finance, have been overwhelming. Do keep an eye on this website and all the IFA Magazine social media channels throughout the day and check out all the great stories, insight and analysis that looks at this fantastic profession of ours.
The theme for this year is #Inspireinclusion and how inspired we have been, by all of the positive insights, comments and perspectives that we have already received throughout the last few weeks in the run-up to IWD 2024. We’re putting all of the fantastic feedback we’ve received up online throughout the day and you can take a look here!
Thank you to all those who contributed and who have shared their personal experiences, thoughts, and musings on this very powerful topic.
What exactly is IWD?
It’s a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. IWD has occurred for well over a century, with the first IWD taking place in 1911 supported by over a million people.
Perhaps surprisingly, it’s the world’s biggest employee engagement day each year and it provides a significant and important moment for organisations to:
- Amplify and reinforce their commitment to women’s advancement
- Highlight key steps being taken and reflect on the impact
- Identify further areas for action
- Celebrate women’s achievements
Women in Finance
So, again this year, our campaign will not only be showcasing some of the great work being done out there on the ground by women in finance but also sharing opinions and insight into the benefits of gender diversity.
Today we will try our best to spotlight leadership, opinions, and analysis of the importance of the role of women working across the financial services and investment professions – as well as gathering direct comments and thought leadership from across the industry about the importance of boosting diversity and inclusion, particularly gender diversity of course, in business.
This will include lots of personal experiences and reflections on the importance of diversity and inclusion in the financial sector. As well as questions being answered by many industry experts, surrounding the environmental change for women working in financial services and the key changes which the industry and businesses could continue to make to encourage more women into the profession. We will hopefully be able to explore what things are within the control of women to do to make positive gender diversity changes in the financial services industry and share stories of where businesses have taken particular steps in recent years to support greater gender diversity or diversity and inclusion more broadly and the benefits as a result of these steps.
We may even have space to touch on a huge question, what does gender diversity look like in a perfect world (if such a thing even exists)?
It’s sure to be an inspirational day filled with strong and compelling discussions that will hopefully bring us a few steps further forward in the pursuit of equality.
I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former Supreme Court Justice, really summed up the purpose of IWD perfectly when she said, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception”.
From the team here at IFA Magazine, we’re privileged to be able to celebrate all the fabulous women (and those of all genders) out there and those who continue to support them throughout financial services. And again, we reiterate that big thank you from all of us here to all those who’ve so warmly and inspirationally shared their stories, insight and analysis with us again this year. We really do appreciate it.
