Annual Summit 2022 - Day 1 Highlights

Wednesday Nov 2: Purposeful Ecosystem Playbooks​

Day one of the 2022 Annual Summit in London convened expert panelists to discuss how to lead with purpose, ecosystem approaches to supporting women-owned/led small enterprises and leveraging the intersections between gender and climate action to maximize impact. See the highlights:

Opening & Welcome Remarks

"If all of us actually get together, help each other, be the peer learning network that we are through the Alliance and connect and share ideas, I know that we will change the world."
"Well over half of our members have a mature Women's Program… that is why we are such a huge knowledge bank as a network"

"Purpose is first and foremost, the first thing we think about as an organization in everything we do every day."


Building Female Friendly Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Europe

There are a lot of economic benefits for having women-led firms: innovation is higher, they are spending more money on training and they are employing more women."
"The growth phase is where most female entrepreneurs are struggling and that is where we have decided to build an ecosystem of support"

"In the sustaining and scaling phase, we found 3 times as many men as women sustaining their companies for longer than 3 years."

Purposeful Leadership

The 2022 CEO Roundtable brought together FSP leaders from around the world for a frank discussion on leading purpose-driven organizations. They discussed their unique approaches to driving gender and climate action, how they integrate purpose in their organizations’ DNA, and the risks and opportunities they face while driving transformation. 

See highlights from the insightful discussion with Alison Rose, CEO of NatWest, Nadia Al Saeed, CEO of Bank al Etihad, Robert Swaak, CEO of ABN AMRO, and Steven Puig, Executive President of Banco BHD.

"We were very clear about defining purpose - but also clear that purpose is about tough decisions. Purpose isn't easy, it's hard."
"It takes a very dynamic and conscious effort to define from the top what your common purpose is."

"The most important thing is to have gender within your DNA. If you don’t walk the talk, nobody will believe you."

Leveraging Organization Superpower to Drive Female Friendly Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

"If we don’t support women, we are not supporting the economy."
"Supporting women SMEs is about providing a holistic offering and ensuring consistency over time."

Data Driving Purpose: Gender Data Codes

"As you continue to track the gender data, the business case becomes obvious and the takeaways get richer."

"We have used data as a starting point to delve deeper into gaps, identify segments that are unbanked, and develop propositions around them."
"We’ve doubled down our work on data in the financial sector to increase the visibility of women."


Hardwiring Climate Action: Lessons from Women’s Markets

"Women are disproportionately affected by climate change, in their livelihoods, health, and in their very basic human rights."
"The issue for the world is that ESG measures are not standardized… we haven’t agreed as a planet how we are going to measure climate action."

Closing Remarks 

Summit Moments

What the Speakers Say

What the Participants Say