A year ago, I wrote a post titled, Dear Wealth Tech, that called on wealth tech companies to build a culture of space, tolerance and capacity for women to perform at their best as caregivers and business leaders. I recommended that companies provide space and flexibility by offering remote work options and family friendly HR policies. I noted that companies should lead by example in expressing their tolerance for employee’s many roles outside of their jobs. I implored companies to give women the capacity to grow by providing support groups and mentoring opportunities, access to professional development and transparency on salaries. And maybe most importantly, I called on the industry and society to embrace the notion of women supporting women.
For me this was more than just a blog post, more than just words and dreams. For me, and for F2 Strategy, it was actionable. So this year, I wanted to provide an update on what we’ve done to work toward our culture of space, tolerance and capacity with a progress report of activities on this front since last March.
We hired talented women.
Today our firm is 50% female/male and we partner with female led suppliers as well. We hired a female C-Suite executive so that we have women throughout all levels of our business. We also hired a female summer intern.
We provided women with recognition and support.
We launched a social media campaign called #womeninwealthtechtowatch which spotlights talented and successful women all over our industry. We have recognized 12 such women so far and the positive reactions are overwhelming. We need more of this and I encourage everyone to spotlight their women to watch. We regularly feature women on our blog and podcasts so that they have platforms to share their ideas and expertise. We also created an internal women’s employee group to support, elevate and empower each other through networking, professional development, Q&A, mentorship and connection activities. The agenda is fluid and focuses on the changing needs of our female colleagues.
We looked toward the future of the industry.
We entered into an official partnership with Girls Who Code so that we can support their efforts to change the face of programmers and close the fintech gender gap. We also provided advisors with information on how they can enhance their relationships with their female clients.
We’re not done.
We’re proud of the strides we made this year and with this foundation under us, we will spend the next 12 months growing our commitment to this effort. Some of our action items include:
- Engaging with organizations like Girls Who Code who give girls and women the tools early on to have successful careers in technology.
- Creating more reports, discussions and public-facing opportunities other than conferences that prominently feature women.
- Create more networking opportunities within the industry to share experiences, learn from each other and lift each other up. After all, without knowing each other exists, how can we hire, promote, or recommend each other?
- Participating in conferences that align with organizations such as CHOIR to ensure events are intentional about diverse speakers.
- Collecting data on women who are already in technology decision-making positions and how their appointments add to increased commercial value for firms to bring forward to the industry.
Celebrate this Women’s History Month by creating your own plan to support and promote women within your firm and the wealth tech industry! Email me if you want tips for how we did it: liz@f2strategy.com.