The Implementers: A Conversation with Women’s Market Managers

Offering women the holistic value proposition they need to succeed requires considerable capabilities on behalf of the Women’s Market managers and their institutions. Perennial issues such as financing ‘start-ups’/very small enterprises, offering valued non-financial services cost effectively and getting the buy-in across the distribution channel are a constant challenge of Women’s Market program managers. This session drew on the everyday experience of those responsible for implementing programs.

Key Points

– One of the biggest challenges BLC Bank faced was communicating about the women empowerment initiative without alienating men.
- The bank also had little internal knowledge about developing training sessions, learning tools, mentoring programs and awards, so it was very hard to establish the non-financial solutions for SMEs. It took them around 2 years to find the right structure, content and experts to attract entrepreneurs.
– For Garanti, the issue of integrating digitalization into the value proposition is a challenge, as is the need to train and re-train staff due to natural turnover.
– The main challenge at HBL currently is getting the non-financial services value proposition right, particularly for SMEs.
– For NatWest, the next challenge is getting the women business owners who are operating through consumer banking into business banking — where they can avail of the bank’s holistic value proposition.
– For Stanbic Bank, ensuring that when a woman walks into a branch, she experiences the Women’s Market program uniformly and consistently remains a challenge. This requires the Women’s Banking team going around each branch and reinforcing.
– Research in Lebanon in 2018 found that access to finance became the No. 4 issue for women entrepreneurs, and access to markets became No. 1. BLC Bank’s Brilliant Lebanese Awards really support that, but there are just 15 finalists on TV. Thinking of new ways to enable access to markets is key.
– Partnerships are key, including getting the Central Banks involved, which is extremely important. Learning through the Financial Alliance For Women is also important.

SPEAKERS

KARYL AKILIAN; Director, Marketing & Business Development; Financial Alliance for Women

YVONNE GREEVES, Head of Women in Business, NatWest

CARINE FERSAN CHOUEIRY, Head of Brand Management, BLC Bank

DANYSH HASHMI, Head of Retail Product Group, HBL

CHANDA CHIME-KATONGO, Public Relations and Women’s Banking Head, Stanbic Bank Zambia

SELIN OZ, SME Banking Entrepreneurship Banking Manager, Garanti Bank

IN THEIR WORDS:

We work with Everywoman, who have trained 500+ of our staff on gender intelligence and mentoring. It’s a wrap-around service that drives our business, our results. We are in the 17th year of our Everywoman Awards, and so we now have a huge network, as a result.
— Yvonne Greeves

Train, train and train. You cannot stop training. Involving people in the training support functions is very important. We now have a more in-depth approach to the way we talk about the Women’s Market across all levels.
— Carine Fersan Choueiry

Getting staff aligned took a lot of gender intelligence training – 11,000 staff trained – and then of course getting the salesforce to work effectively with women customers.
— Danysh Hashmi

Ensuring that when a woman walks into a branch, that she experiences our Women’s Market program uniformly and consistently, remains a challenge.
— Chanda Chime-Katongo

Finance is very important, and women are shy—so it’s important to encourage them, get them to share their concerns.
— Selin Oz

Bringing men into the conversation can really help a program achieve scale.
— Yvonne Greeves

The Women’s market is not a CSR project. It’s an actual business.
— Chanda Chime-Katongo

We found out that women entrepreneurs value non-financial services more than financial products.
— Selin Oz

The Implementers: A Conversation with Women’s Market Managers

SPEAKERS

IN THEIR WORDS:

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