The statistics suggest Canada is one of the better countries to be a professional woman in the financial services industry.
Female representation on the Boards and ExCos of its financial institutions is 25% and 23% respectively, making Canada the 3rd highest ranking country for Executive Committee gender diversity in our sample, behind Norway and Sweden. This high ranking of gender diversity of the Canadian financial services industry shows that it is pulling above its weight when compared to the overall Canadian society, which got a ranking of number 19 in the 2014 World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report.
Senior Executives we have spoken with agreed that they must continue to push the diversity agenda at all levels of their firms.
- Increase women’s ability to re-onboard through industry internship programs, flexible working conditions and formal and informal mentoring for women
- Bring men more into the conversation and encourage them to take paternity leave and sabbaticals
- Increase flexibility and diversify traditional career progression paths
Visit our Women in Financial Services homepage to download our full report, click here.
Interviewee Quotes
If we really want to build leaders of the future, they better be in those roles that we think are going to be differentiators for the future success in the institutionsLinda Mantia Executive Vice President, Digital, Payments & Cards, Royal Bank of Canada
One of the most important things we can do is to help women see that there is an on-ramp back into the industry and support them when they take it. Bringing experienced women back to the industry is critical to building a pipeline for leadership rolesJennifer Reynolds President & CEO, Women in Capital Markets
Senior Executives in Canada are tackling both conscious and unconscious bias as barriers to inclusion and progress, but Toronto is ahead of the pack because we are an extremely culturally diverse city which naturally brings different points of view to the tableJennifer Tory Group Heap, Personal and Commercial Banking, Royal Bank of Canada
