04 | GENDER DIVERSITY IN TODAY’S FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY Gender diversity in today’s financial services industry To build a definitive fact base on women’s advancement in leadership, we omen remain leveraged insights gathered from financial services firms in the Women in the W Workplace Survey. These firms represent three sub-sectors in North America: significantly underrepresented banking and consumer finance; asset management and wholesale banking; 5 in the upper and insurance. levels of financial Our research shows that women remain significantly underrepresented in the upper levels of services firms. financial services firms. Women and men in financial services begin their careers at parity, mak- ing up roughly equal portions of entry-level staff, but higher up the ladder, women account for only 19 percent of positions in the C-suite (Exhibit 1). This is slightly lower than the 22 percent average for US women overall.