INTRODUCTION | 03 After 32 years in the financial services likely to outperform on profitability and 27 percent more 2 Furthermore, industry, what’s most encouraging to me likely to demonstrate superior value creation. is that the topic of gender diversity is on companies in the top quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity fire. But there’s still a lot of work to do. on executive teams were 33 percent more likely to have 3 industry-leading profitability. Margo Cook, Nuveen Advisory Services Improved representation of female leaders will lead to a more rounded view of customers. This is particularly critical in financial services, given that more than half of women now In North America, women account for over half of the en- control their household finances and are responsible for 4 try-level work force in financial services. They have reached household savings and investing. Furthermore, companies the highest levels within firms and their numbers at the top that do not focus on gender diversity will find themselves at continue to grow, albeit slowly. Despite this progress, women a disadvantage in the war for talent. still represent fewer than one in five positions in the financial services C-suite. There is much work to be done to achieve gender parity in the financial services sector. Anybody who doesn’t think about how Our research for Women in the Workplace, a collaborative to bring in more women won’t be able to initiative between LeanIn.org and McKinsey, examines the compete, because they’re just cutting out gender parity gap in financial services and looks at what half the talent from their opportunity set. can be done to close it. As part of Women in the Work- place’s effort to create the definitive fact base on wom- Jenny Johnson, Franklin Templeton Investments en’s advancement in leadership, we surveyed more than 1 and 14,000 employees at 39 financial services companies interviewed 12 female senior executives at financial ser- Given a strong business case for change, much more work vices firms in North America. Although the data are based needs to be done. Our research breaks down the current on North American research, we believe the insights and state of gender diversity in the financial services industry implications have global relevance. to consider the impact by subsector, employment level, More than 90 percent of financial services companies and race. We also explore employee experiences in the surveyed assert a commitment to gender diversity. This workplace to better understand the root causes of today’s commitment makes clear business sense: Companies challenges. The gender parity issues facing the financial with greater gender diversity perform better. McKinsey’s services industry are complex, but there are ways to address research has shown that companies in the top quartile for these challenges to improve the representation of women at gender diversity on executive teams were 21 percent more every level. 1 Combined, the 39 financial-services companies employ approximately 1.2 million people; survey respondents were selected from non-front-line employees, which total 575,000. 2 Measured as economic profit margin. 3 Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle, Vivian Hunt, Sara Prince, and Lareina Yee, Delivering through diversity, January 2018, McKinsey.com. 4 Chris Metinko, “Women are the new CFO of the household,” The Street, April 19, 2017, thestreet.com.