Summit Kickoff Event to Convene Global Changemaking CEOs

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2019 GBA Summit Logo

The 2019 Annual Global Banking Alliance for Women Summit will open with the first-ever GBA CEO Forum, convening leading CEOs and c-suite changemakers from a wide range of financial and real sector corporations to share business solutions for women’s economic empowerment.

As the kickoff event of the 2019 Summit, “Building Resilience Through Inclusion,” leaders at the CEO forum will share how they are championing women’s inclusion using advanced business case examples, candidly discuss challenges and solutions, and publicly comment on specific goals their organizations have to support economic opportunities for women. The event’s final outputs will be incorporated into a communiqué issued to the G7 under France’s presidency, demonstrating the role the private sector is playing in supporting inclusive growth.

The CEO Forum will comprise two panels:

Panel 1: Building Resilience Through Inclusion

Women are key to economic progress: They make between 75 and 85 percent of household purchasing decisions and own one-third of the world’s businesses. Yet, women globally face a variety of barriers to accessing and using financial services, which puts them at an economic disadvantage. Women also face key life moments such as motherhood, divorce/widowhood and retirement that can make them particularly economically vulnerable. This panel will show how the private sector can help women build resilience throughout their lifecycles with access to the right combination of financial and non-financial services, and in providing that, how companies are building their own resilience.

Panel 2: Business Models for Inclusive Growth

Inclusive growth is necessary to ensure that the benefits of economic growth are distributed across society. A key tenant of inclusive growth is fair and equal access to a full suite of financial and non-financial services. As customer-centric networks through which products and services can be offered by various players, ecosystems can be particularly effective in fostering inclusive growth and meeting the varying needs of women across their lifecycles. This panel will showcase examples from a range of ecosystem actors both within and outside the GBA network — from financial services providers to adjacent industries like retailers and consumer packaged goods companies — that support women’s inclusive growth, providing models for replication and scale.

The GBA CEO Forum is an invitation-only event, open to attendees of the GBA Summit. If you are interested in attending, please email the Summit organizers at summit@gbaforwomen.org for more information.