Ipswich Building Society signs up to Women in Finance Charter

Ipswich Building Society has signed the UK’s HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter, committing to help improve gender diversity in the UK’s financial services sector– while the societyhas launched internal gender balance targets.

Thecharter, which has been signed by over 205 firms, covering over 650,000 UK financial services employees, is a government initiative designed to improve equality within the financial services sector.

Richard Norrington, chief executive at Ipswich Building Society, said: “We are proud to sign the Women in Finance Charter, an important initiative which is helping to drive positive change in the financial services industry.

“As a mutual we operate a responsible business model where diversity is a key focus, and signing thecharter is important as it demonstrates our commitment to gender balance at all levels of our business.

“We’re pleased to have set internal gender balanced targets, which will help guide us as we continue to actively pursue a balanced, inclusive and fair industry.”

The society’s targets for greater gender diversity include: 30% women representation on the society’s board, executive and non-executive by 2023 and to maintain a minium of 30% female representation on the senior management team.

This currently stands at 45%and the society has 22% of women on its whole board and 33% for female representation of non-executive directors.

The society plans a programme of unconscious bias training for all recruiting managers within 12 months and a society succession plan and talent pipeline audit to ensure it is gender balanced.

It will also have a review of the existing workforce’s development plans to ensure thesociety’s succession plan promotes the development of women and annually review employee salaries to ensure that there are no equality issues relating to gender.