StanChart promises to fill 30% of senior roles with women in new global campaign

Standard Chartered (StanChart) has unveiled a new global campaign reinforcing the bank?s commitment to having 30% of senior roles filled by women by the end of 2020.? The commitment challenges the financial industry's average of 15% females in the executive management.

Partnering creative agency TBWA\\Singapore, it produced an one-minute film illustrating the stark reality of the absence of women in senior positions in the financial sector.?TBWA\\Singapore strategy director?Michele Bouquet said the film leverages?a simple mechanism to demonstrate the gender gap by making the audience realise?how few women are at the top as the story progresses.

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The campaign is supported by additional content on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to drive people to the Standard Chartered's global website. This provides additional information around the bank?s ongoing initiatives in the area of diversity and inclusion. The campaign launched in US, UK, UAE, Singapore, Germany, Kenya, and Taiwan.

?Our message is one of empowerment and commitment to make things better. It?s about time we make a change and look beyond gender, basing merit on capabilities,? added Bouquet.

The campaign is the?latest instalment of Standard Chartered?s global brand campaign "Here for good", which demonstrates the bank?s belief that a financial institution can be a force for good by promoting economic activities that positively impact the world.

In 2018, the first phase of the brand campaign established Standard Chartered as a bank that wants to challenge important issues standing in the way of commerce and prosperity. In the second phase, the brand campaign evolved its narrative deeper to demonstrate how the bank is taking action and standing up to what is not good enough in the world and in banking for people and their communities.

Emma Sheller, global head, brand and marketing, Standard Chartered said the bank has?seen a positive trend in female representation in its senior leadership roles since signing the Women in Finance Charter in 2016 and it is confident to reach its target by end of 2020. She added: "Our markets are in different stages of their diversity and inclusion journey, due to varying cultural, legal and historical contexts. What we are looking for is to have every market collectively demonstrate progress, and that means a holistic and tailored solution to meet the requirements of the local environment."

Separately, Sheller said that since signing the Women in Finance Charter in 2016, the company has seen a positive trend in female representation in its senior leadership roles. While StanChart started to make initial progress, it acknowledges that there is still much to be done to continue sustainable growth in this area.

"We have a number of initiatives in place to support us in meeting this target, e.g. a global flexible working policy, diverse candidate slates and interview panels, and supporting over 20 gender Employee Resource groups," Sheller said. She added that its markets are in different stages of their diversity and inclusion journey, due to varying cultural, legal and historical contexts.

"What we are looking for is to have every market collectively demonstrate progress, and that means a holistic and tailored solution to meet the requirements of the local environment," she explained.

Sheller is of the view that a great challenge comes with?ensuring StanChart gets the desired level of female representation in all parts of the bank, and not just in the traditional areas or functions where women tend to work. According to her, common barriers across financial services include lack of business ownership and accountability, weak talent pipelines of female talent, and insufficient visibility of metrics to track and monitor progress.

As such, the group has built requirements in its?policies and processes to ensure that managers are making objective and fair decisions, including gender balance candidate list for hiring. It also reviewed promotion lists and succession plans to ensure it has adequate representation of women and have not overlooked any female talent. It also introduced training for all people leaders with the objective to mitigate unconscious bias.

Campaign credits: Executive creative director: Hagan de Villers Global creative director: Perry Essig Senior copywriter: Anne Brandner Senior art director Franziska Krueger Chief strategy officer, Singapore & South East Asia: Robin Nayak Global strategy director: Michele Bouquet Strategy executive: Weitian Zhang. Project manager: Faith Pang Global business lead: Melissa Hill Group brand director: Benoit Freyburger Brand manager: Rachael Wong Brand executive: Priscilla Lim. Film production House: Ruffian LLC / Film Produkcja Director: Martin Krejci Post production: Progressivefx s.r.o Music composition & sound design: & JSM Music Inc NY Photography production: IDC Photographers / Film Produkcja Print production house: EG+ Worldwide Photographer: Sacha Stejko Exec producer: Briar Pacey Producer: Maria Mazurczak

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