Women in Banking and Finance

WiBF’s corporate members represent all facets of industry, from major Australian and international banks through to mutuals, insurers, investment managers, super funds, professional services, financial regulators, fintechs, treasury, exchanges and corporates servicing the sector.

WiBF’s corporate members collectively employ more than 200,000 individuals, all of whom are able to access educational and networking opportunities from wherever they work across Australia and even, in a few cases, their offshore postings.

WiBF’s vision is to create a tangible, positive impact in the Australian banking and financial-services sector that will lead to improved gender diversity and inclusive leadership practices across the sector.

Its mission is to:

• Enable women in emerging, mid-career and senior executive roles to achieve their career goals.
• Work with member organisations to develop an awareness and understanding of the business sense and strength behind gender diversity and innovation, and actively grow the talent pipeline of professional women at every stage of their career.

Through bespoke education programmes and customised events, WiBF supports member organisations to open up professional-development opportunities, share insights and thought leadership on gender diversity and inclusion, and facilitate networking and knowledge transfer at educational events and learning forums.

WiBF’s corporate members span the full breadth of the banking and finance sector, and gender composition varies a lot across the membership. Across the sector, women represent 54 per cent of the workforce yet only 31 per cent of key management positions and fewer than 10 per cent of CEOs. While WiBF offers programmes and opportunities to support women across all career stages, it is particularly these senior leadership levels that it seeks to influence.

WiBF was created in 2000 by a group of committed changemakers in the male-dominated areas of banking and finance including financial markets, investment banking and stockbroking. These women recognised the need for a forum where the few women working in these areas could come together to support one another, access mentors and senior leadership, and build a trusted network to do business with.

Two decades on, WiBF has grown into a thriving community that spans all aspects of the banking and finance sector.

To create systemic and sustainable change, WiBF has designed corporate membership packages for employers in the sector. Once an organisation becomes a corporate member, each employee in that organisation can access WiBF’s offering at member rates and access webinars and the video library via the member dashboard, free of charge.

There are four membership tiers, each designed to suit the individual needs of every organisation and offering different levels of participation and access to the WiBF education suite. This approach ensures every corporate member is getting the best value from its membership, and also ensures members’ annual journey with WiBF is relevant, beneficial and measurable.

Individual membership is available for those who are not employed by a corporate member but who would like to be connected to the financial-services sector.

WiBF holds a number of networking events and education programmes throughout the calendar year, providing members with targeted professional development and opportunities to meet other industry members via online delivery and in member offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

WiBF supports gender diversity at its events and encourages its member organisations to register men and women to attend where possible.

Education programmes include WiBF mentoring for success, Great Leaders Are Made, Voice of Leadership and the Peak Performance career coaching programme. In the COVID-19 environment, WiBF has shifted from face-to-face events to virtual webinars and education delivery. However, it hopes soon to be able to resume its coveted networking events in Australian capital cities.