This year’s International Women’s Day campaign #BalanceforBetter focuses on shared responsibility and the collective action needed to accelerate gender balance across the world. GBA emphatically acknowledges the importance of private sector C-Suite changemakers to drive this collective action. Our IWD campaign #EngageforBalance showcases pioneering changemakers from our membership who are engaging in their organizations to build gender balance and drive full financial inclusion of women. As we highlight these industry leaders, we hope we can encourage more actors in the ecosystem to undertake and launch initiatives to drive change forward. Keep checking our social media channels, including our newly born Instagram account @gbaforwomen, to catch videos of some of our celebrated leaders and quotes from a selection of our members on how they are building an inclusive world.
Moving forward, we eagerly await our first-ever CEO Forum June 17 in Paris, where more industry leaders will join the global movement to build a more balanced and sustainable world through financial and gender inclusion. Anchored by the CEO of Summit host AXA, leaders from a range of companies will candidly discuss challenges and solutions to achieving gender balance and publicly comment on specific goals their organizations have set to support economic opportunities for women. This opening morning of the Summit will bring companies from a wide range of sectors to the GBA table – in line with our strategy to diversify beyond banks – and will showcase how critical partnerships are to working toward balance.
The link between gender balance in the C-Suite and success in serving the Women’s Market was well established during our first Working Group on Gender Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) last year. Our second group on D&I, in partnership with Mercer, kicks off April 4. We invite members both with internal D&I responsibilities as well as those on the customer-facing side (Women’s Markets) to sign up.
Later this month we gather a sold-out crowd for our All-Stars Academy hosted by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) in Cairo. With a groundbreaking national financial inclusion strategy, the CBE has invited CEOs from the top Egyptian banks for a Master Class on the Case for Serving the Women’s Market at the beginning of the Academy, as we continue to engage C-Suite changemakers.
A great example of #BalanceforBetter comes from Access Bank, whose recent announcement of a merger with fellow GBA member Diamond Bank will make it the largest bank by customer base on the African continent. Their IWD campaign is a robust testimony to the bank’s vision for gender parity – both within the organization and in the communities it serves. The first part of the campaign represents a powerful example of C-Suite changemakers, profiling the bank’s Executive Management team members holding signs with their personal commitments to work toward greater gender balance. Follow Access Bank on social media today to see the second part of the campaign, which encourages customers in their branches to do the same. In the spirit of cross-regional learning, this month we are publishing a GBA Case Study on Access Bank in Spanish.
Join the GBA #EngageforBalance movement this International Women’s Day: Let us show the world what we do and inspire others to get involved.
Sincere thanks,
