The efforts of Citywealth (Jones Publishing Ltd) to address in an innovative way the problems women face in the financial sector, earned the company a nomination for a Queen's Award for Enterprise.
Judges were impressed by the extensive Powerwomen campaign, spearheaded by the annual Powerwomen Awards, that continues to increase in importance each year and achieve change in the industry.
"There is a good level of corporate social responsibility demonstrated" commented the judges.
Karen Jones, CEO of Citywealth, spotted the problem that held women back from achieving their full potential in the work place. In spite of initiatives by governments and businesses to ensure more women made it to senior management roles, often this vision was not realised.
The main reason was found to be old information which was constantly repeated in the media and by corporates and which stated that women had children and that they were therefore disadvantaged. Another reason was women were isolated within organisations at senior level and often didn't have peers to lean on for support in good times and bad.
In addition a survey we conducted revealed that companies were guilty of ‘gender washing’, that is simply paying lip service to shareholders.
A few years ago there weren't any offerings for women in financial services. If there
were women's groups they were informal and not funded. So Citywealth launched the first ever survey on Gender & Diversity in collaboration with a professor at the London School of Economics, whose findings were published in a British government backed report in July 2014.
From then on the Powerwomen Awards were created to highlight those companies and
individuals, both male and female, who support gender initiatives, and powerful women who
are impacting bottom line profit growth for their businesses. The awards achieved engagement with top management in corporates, to further men's understanding of the issues women face.
A year later the awards had an increase of 50% in male attendance. It is now an ambition
of companies large and small to be recognised by the Citywealth Powerwomen Awards for
their achievements in promoting women's careers, with large corporations such as UBS,
Barclays, RBS, PwC and Deloitte showing the way forward and inviting other sectors to
follow their examples.
The judges recognised that Jones Publishing was ahead of the trend to implement gender and diversity initiatives and has carved out a valuable reputation for helping companies solve the problem
of gender attrition.
Judges were impressed by the extensive Powerwomen campaign, spearheaded by the annual Powerwomen Awards, that continues to increase in importance each year and achieve change in the industry.
"There is a good level of corporate social responsibility demonstrated" commented the judges.
Karen Jones, CEO of Citywealth, spotted the problem that held women back from achieving their full potential in the work place. In spite of initiatives by governments and businesses to ensure more women made it to senior management roles, often this vision was not realised.
The main reason was found to be old information which was constantly repeated in the media and by corporates and which stated that women had children and that they were therefore disadvantaged. Another reason was women were isolated within organisations at senior level and often didn't have peers to lean on for support in good times and bad.
In addition a survey we conducted revealed that companies were guilty of ‘gender washing’, that is simply paying lip service to shareholders.
A few years ago there weren't any offerings for women in financial services. If there
were women's groups they were informal and not funded. So Citywealth launched the first ever survey on Gender & Diversity in collaboration with a professor at the London School of Economics, whose findings were published in a British government backed report in July 2014.
From then on the Powerwomen Awards were created to highlight those companies and
individuals, both male and female, who support gender initiatives, and powerful women who
are impacting bottom line profit growth for their businesses. The awards achieved engagement with top management in corporates, to further men's understanding of the issues women face.
A year later the awards had an increase of 50% in male attendance. It is now an ambition
of companies large and small to be recognised by the Citywealth Powerwomen Awards for
their achievements in promoting women's careers, with large corporations such as UBS,
Barclays, RBS, PwC and Deloitte showing the way forward and inviting other sectors to
follow their examples.
The judges recognised that Jones Publishing was ahead of the trend to implement gender and diversity initiatives and has carved out a valuable reputation for helping companies solve the problem
of gender attrition.
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