Women in Finance Charter

JM Finn is a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter, a government led initiative designed to encourage gender balance at all levels across financial services firms. By signing up to the Charter, firms:

  • indicate their commitment to support the progression of women into senior roles;
  • set targets and implement the right strategy for their organisations to achieve those targets; and
  • publicly report on progress to deliver against their targets to support the transparency and accountability needed to drive change.

women in finance charter

Goals

Our medium term, high level goal is to achieve 30% female representation within senior management, against our December 2019 level of 23%. This is a challenging goal and progress towards and beyond it will be highly beneficial to the firm.

Having signed the Women in Finance Charter in 2019 we have implemented a number of goals that put the issues right at the heart of the business.

Initiatives that have been implemented that we hope will help us address the imbalance in the long term, include:

  • Work toward 30% representation of women in senior management
  • Aim for 50/50 gender split for applicants to IM Trainee scheme
  • Review and formalise our hiring policy to broaden the pool of talent available to us
  • Offer coaching pre- and post-maternity leave for all employees
  • Offer at least one specific leadership coaching session per year for women
  • Initiate mentoring and networking programmes

Annual Update: 2023

When we signed up to the Charter in 2019 our level of female representation within senior management was 23%.  Our goal is to increase this to 30% by 2030, with an interim target to help keep us focused of 25% female representation by 2025.

As a smaller organisation, progress and change, which can take time to implement and see the benefits of, can be undone by a small number of individual personnel changes, either planned or otherwise. As such we strive to have a range of activity designed to create direct action and change, such as updating our family policies, supported by longer term actions which help us attract new talent and change the perception of the industry.  Below we list some of the actions we have taken since signing the charter in 2019.

Action taken

  • All hiring managers now receive ongoing training to help address unconscious bias and reinforce the benefits of having a diverse work force. The training was initiated in 2019 and is refreshed on an ongoing basis.
  • To ensure we continue to promote on merit and to remove any inherent biases, we haveconvened a promotion panel to approve any promotion recommendations and assess any situations where someone may have been overlooked
  • We ran a very successful “Confident Communication for Women” CPD and networking event, for women from across the business.  This brought together management colleagues, to share and enhance skills and experience.
  • In 2023 we updated our family policies further to encourage returners from parental leave.
  • Coaching for pre- and post-maternity is offered to all staff. Feedback suggests this is invaluable in helping people set and manage their own, and their colleagues, expectations.
  • Our mentoring program, which was rolled out to the whole firm in 2019 and again in 2021 has continued to be a great success.  We now have a comprehensive program involving staff across the business.
  • A hybrid working policy is in place as we look to create an environment in which our employees can work with an appropriate balance between office time and homeworking.
  • Thanks to broadening the awareness of the investment manager trainee scheme, we have reached a much wider audience and received applications from a more diverse group of applicants than ever before.
  • We plan to continue with our successful Young Women in Work program. This program is designed to help us engage with a younger audience about career choices and change the perception of the financial services industry at the grass roots level.
  • We continue to be active in industry-wide initiatives designed to promote the success of women in the industry in the belief that these initiatives can deliver excellent role models for others.
  • We continue our 6 year association with Tammy Beaumont as a brand ambassador for the firm. Tammy is a world cup winning England, Kent and Welsh Fire cricketer and we hope her engagement with us will encourage younger women to explore the career options available to them within the wealth management industry.
  • We have sponsored a number of initiatives designed to develop our brand awareness among a female audience, particularly at the school age level, with the long term aspiration that more females will engage with the industry later in life.
  • We have engaged with GAIN (girls are investors), a charity committed to inspire girls to get into the investment industry.
  • We were proud to support an event to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Women Stockbrokers gaining entrance to the London Stock Exchange Market Floor as members (in March 1973).
  • We have supported a female member of staff in her bid to row across the Atlantic, in both her funding efforts and encouraging her to fulfil a dream.
  • We are proud sponsors of the Cricket Writers’ Club Women’s Cricket Award, which is awarded to the player who has made a significant impact in elite performance in thewomen's game.
  • During the summer of 2023 we initiated our inaugural staff survey to help us gather more insights into the drivers that motivate our staff.