Financial institutions' gender balance progress under threat, study shows

Yahoo

16-04-2025

By Marc Jones
LONDON (Reuters) -The rise in the number of women holding top jobs at leading financial institutions has slowed over the last year and further progress is under threat as the United States and other countries roll back diversity drives, a new report has shown.
The annual Gender Balance Index published by the London-based OMFIF think tank on Wednesday showed the share of female leaders of central banks, commercial banks and sovereign and pension funds at an all-time high of 16%, although that was "only decimal points higher" than last year.
The share acoss all senior positions was also just one percentage point higher at 32%, while the index, which measures overall gender balance, stood at 42 out of 100, "less than halfway to gender balance".
Diversity efforts face a testing time as the U.S. government under Donald Trump seeks to remove diversity, equity and inclusion programmes from federal agencies and push the private sector to follow suit.
"While the U.S. has been most vocal in this retreat, there is evidence of contagion on a global scale, with institutions in Asia and Europe also rolling back policies," the report said.
There has nevertheless been some progress.
Sovereign funds, which manage a nation's wealth, had the largest year-on-year index score improvement, taking it to 38, double where it was 2021, with progress predominantly driven by emerging economies.
A record 30 women now head central banks and, as a group, the 50 commercial banks in the study also saw their largest index score increase since their inclusion in 2021.
But the pipeline of female talent is thin: the overall share of women in executive C-suite roles increased to 19% from 15%, but almost half of the commercial banks in the index still have no women in their C-suite.
Female CEOs remain also below 15%, with one woman CEO appointed last year against nine new men. The share of women in pension fund C-suite roles also fell to 28% from 31% the previous year.
The modest progress could go into reverse, the report said, noting six of the biggest U.S. banks – Citi, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan – were all cutting their diversity, equity and inclusion programmes.
"Although it is too soon to say what implications this rollback will have on gender balance, given the instability in its pipeline, it is likely that North America may not remain the highest-scoring region in the future," it said.
(Additional Reporting by Simon Jessop; editing by Barbara Lewis)