We had such a wonderful start to the Women in Finance QLD year - celebrating International Women's Day at Comuna Cantina.
It was a packed event - great to see so many people from our community taking the change to network. It was lovely to meet so many new faces!
Following on from an event with our members and friends, a word from our President, Donna Kosiek below...
Dear Members, What an amazing week of cel
ebration acknowledging International Women’s Day we witnessed and participated in. It certainly feels like our swift transition to meeting and attending learning events virtually, gave greater access to some inspirational stories for anyone who wanted to engage in them, elevating a voice of celebration, education and advocacy.
Personally I was privileged to attend the UN Women Australia lunch in Brisbane, with concurrent lunches held across the country and key note speakers beaming in from the USA and across Australia. Crack the Code was the UN IWD 23 theme and one of my many learnings from the day was a raised awareness of a continued gender bias perpetuating in our AI world, with review of 133 AI Systems across industries finding that 44.2% demonstrate gender bias.
Your Women In Finance team held our own IWD23 celebratory and networking event at Comuna Cantina, and welcomed the biggest gathering ever to such an event. Thanks to all those who came along and we look forward to hosting and connecting again with our 2023 events.
This community seeks to foster inclusion, allyship and empower opportunity through connecting, networking and education so look out for our other events throughout the year which will include our Educate event, EOFY networking and marquee Inspire event, with our previous speakers being Julie Bishop (2022) and Anna Bligh (2021), we are working hard to bring another inspiring woman to our community in 2023.
We’re passionate in our commitment to our members and community to foster better representation of female influence and voice in our sector, across it’s numerous professions. Where Finance remains a highly feminised workforce, there is work to be done to close out gaps in key management positions, board representations, and for our sector current trends have us well over 100 years from gender neutral representation in the role of CEO.
A couple of whys to share with you:
2022 the gender pay gap stayed the same in 22 as 21 – no movement at 22.8%, this continues to contribute to the gendered wealth gap (WGEA Gender Equality Scorecard 2022)
More than 50% of organisations are looking to make access to flexible working conditions and primary care support gender neutral, but our male colleagues are less likely to take advantage of these employee benefits, which implies the bulk of primary care responsibility remains with female colleagues.
KPMG She’s price(d)less 22 found that contrary to previous assumptions women are asking for pay rises but not getting them and while Mining has the biggest GPG, Finance is equal with Health in second biggest at $1548 per month and there we have to ask ourselves where our roles are less “gender segregated” (we have 50/50 gender representation in our sector) why does this continue to play out? Are we gender profiling/designing roles?
In some good news, from 7th June 2023 pay secrecy terms can’t be included in new employment contracts or other written agreements and where they already exist these terms will no longer have effect and can’t be enforced. Pay transparency has long been considered a barrier to equity, however this change will not be an antidote in an environment where pay is not discussed or bands disclosed for equivalent roles – so there remains some work to be done here still.
Thanks to our wonderful Women In Finance team, together with you, our members and community, we will continue in passionate advocacy and purpose, and look forward to connecting again soon.
Our ask of you – please share with us any significant achievements of our community, we love using this platform for celebrating women, and to continue to engage and welcome new members to our upcoming events.
Lastly, as we move further into a fast paced 2023, take care of yourself, know you have a tribe in us and we look forward to our future journey in camaraderie and advocacy together.
Donna Kosiek
President