Independent Women's Ambition Debate November 2011

We were delighted to have hosted an inspiring and stimulating debate at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane at the start of this month.  Whilst we are, fundamnetally,  financial advisers, it is our absolute core belief that money and finance are essential elements of every independent woman's life stage; so we need to know and understand our client's wants, needs, dreams and aspirations in order to make recommendations as to how we believe they can best organise their finances to optimise felxibility and choice.  We are also passionate about helping support and encourage women to be all that they can be; organising and feeling in control of your finances can be a major step to feeling more in control about your life - even when that life throws you a curve ball or surprises you yet again....

Our Six Stages of Women rests at the heart of everything that we do; we recognise that women move in and out of these stages and need to have funds in place to enable them to do so http://bit.ly/qspLfT

So, with all the great work being done to get more women onto UK Boards, we started to think about AMBITION in its broadest sense - what does it mean for women, especially post 2008 when the appalling corporate behaviours, doubtful political wisdom (espcially across certain European countries), seemingly endless bailouts and gloomy recession have really turned upside down the thrusting, success-and-material-accumulation of the earlier 2000's. Do women aspire to be on corporate boards?  If so, do we support quotas to get them there?  And if they don't have that particular aspiration, but they do want infleunce and impact - what does that look like and how do they achieve that?

We had a fantastic panel, drawn from across the spectrum of public and private sector;  male and female, entrepreneurial and corporate. Karen Darby, serial entrepreneur, feminist and general legend; Steve Allen, Deputy Chief Constable of L&B Police, Head of Diversity & Equality for Scotland's police and former Head of Diversity & Commander of the Metropolitan Police; Gita Patel, Director and Founder of Stargate Capital and the Trapezia Fund (UK's first women-focused equity fund, launched in 2006) and former FD at Nat West; Shalini Khemka, CEO of the London Entrepreneurial Exchange and former Investment Director at Lloyds Development Capital. Moderated by the fabulous Professor Eleanor Shaw of Strathclyde University and attended by a select group of 50 businesswomen, the challenge was not what topics to pick, but how to pack everything in and stop it on time.

Right from the off, the roving microphones were at full speed and the arms were raised high to have a say.  Whilst we were keen to talk about things other than the Davies Report and quotas, the topic inevitably came up at some length and the most interesting thing was that the majority (around 80% ) of people in the room now felt that quotas were probably , if not definitely a good way to go. A high proportion of those people caveated this view by saying that they never believed in quotas in the past and ideally they just want talent to be fairly recognised - but at the current rate of change and lack of real progress we are "bored", "tired" and "fed up" of waiting and no longer buy the argument that quotas will freak women out because they may not have been selected on talent. The overwhelming view was "Get there, believe you got there on merit and continue to prove it confidently".  Ever strident, Karen Darby ahs set up an e-petition and we will aim to recruit the 100,000 signatures it requires to force a debate in parliament.  Sign up here
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/21412

We also talked about women's responsibility to themselves and to other women; the requirement for them to stop overly beating themselves up and to stop putting pressure on other women - we need to support one another. As long as those receiving women are good - talented, generous, decent, honest and collaborative. We have NO PLACE FOR BAD WOMEN!

We are creating an e-newsletter with a fuller update and lots of pics of the day, so look out for that at the end of November.   We are hosting the Independent Women Ambition Debare Scotland at the end of January in Edinburgh and the next London event will be in late April.

Drop me a line if you want to sign up for our e-newlsetter...
clarelogie@independentwomen.co.uk

More Women Directors Will Improve Risk Management, ABI Says

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Britain’s biggest 350 publicly traded firms should hire more women to their boards and clearly state how they’re increasing gender diversity, according to the Association of British Insurers.

Promoting women to the higher echelons of management will improve firms’ risk management, encourage debate around strategy and help them focus on longer term objectives, the ABI said in a report published today. The ABI represents insurers managing 1.7 trillion pounds ($2.7 trillion) in assets.

“Board members with diverse perspectives are more likely to challenge previously held assumptions and break down the tendency toward ‘group think’ that can arise where a board is composed solely of like-minded individuals,” the report said. “Overall, women remain poorly represented in corporate boardrooms.”

The European Commission last year requested publicly traded firms to voluntarily commit to having women make up 30 percent of their boards by 2015. The proportion of women in boardrooms of the U.K.’s biggest 100 companies is 14.2 percent this year, up from 13.4 percent in 2010, the ABI said.

Mervyn Davies, former chairman of Standard Chartered Plc, recommended that FTSE 100 companies increase the proportion of women on their boards to 25 percent in a report in February. It will take more than 70 years to achieve gender parity in U.K. boardrooms at the current rate of change, he said.

“Boards with better gender balance pay more attention to audit, and risk oversight and control,” the ABI report said. “They also appear to be better at explicitly identifying criteria for measuring and monitoring the implementation of corporate strategy as compared to all-male boards.”

Companies should recognize they have a responsibility for promoting women and publish targets for gender diversity in their annual reports “wherever possible,” the ABI said. The group is “strongly skeptical” of quotas because they would encourage promoting people without the right skill set, it said.

“Promoting greater diversity in any form is not just a numbers game or an exercise in political correctness,” the ABI said.

Do we agree?

Do we think that the Davies Report is a vital component in driving more and more women into positions of influence and impact across the UK?

Do we consider male infleunce in teh same way - ie. that's is the position of men on PLC Boards who we believe wield the most influence in the country?

Do women have to accept that if this is not one of their ambitions in life, then they'll just have to concede that they will never have genuine equality of influence....?

Join the Independent Women Ambition Debates  http://bit.ly/q128mB

Gender Pay Gap - Reflecting the Six Stages of Women?

The closing of the gender pay gap follows more than a decade of greater educational achievement by girls than boys and a view among some employers that they are more ambitious and efficient.

BUT... MALE EXECUTIVES ARE STILL PAID £10,000 MORE THAN FEMALE COUNTERPARTS

Male executives are paid more than £10,000 a year more than their female counterparts, research has revealed.

A study of 35,000 executives showed a gender gap of £10,546, around £500 more than last year, although at junior level women earned marginally more than men.

Wages for women executives are increasing faster than those of men.

But at the current rate if will take almost 100 years for salaries to be equal, according to the report by the Chartered Management Institute.

Male executives earned an average of £42,441 compared with £31,895 for women, although men's pay increased by 2.3 per cent in the past year compared with 2.8 per cent for women.

CMI director of policy and research Petra Wilton said: 'While CMI is delighted that junior female executives have caught up with males at the same level, this year's salary survey demonstrates, yet again, that businesses are contributing to the persistent gender pay gap and alienating top female employees by continuing to pay men and women unequally.

'This kind of bad management is damaging UK businesses and must be addressed.'

The institute also found salaries for women went up by 2.4 per cent in the year to February, compared with 2.1 per cent for men, and that men and women are being made redundant at the same rate.

The £21,969 salary of a junior female executive – typically in food retail or the Health Service – compares with £21,367 for a male counterpart.

But overall a woman executive can expect to earn £31,895 against £42,441 for a man.

CMI research chief Petra Wilton said: 'Because of the historic trend of gender pay discrimination, at more senior levels women will continue to be paid less.

'Those who have been underpaid for 30 years or so are unlikely to suddenly get a pay rise, and clearly employers can't go around cutting male pay just to even things out.

'Gender discrimination in the workplace may be phasing out slowly, but it has been entrenched for such a long time that it will take quite some time until we see equality at all levels.

'We may well have to wait for junior executives to move through the ranks for pay parity to be achieved.'

However, Ruth Lea, economist for the Arbuthnot Banking Group, said older women were paid less because many chose not to focus on their careers.

'The fact that younger women are paid more than men is a clear sign that there is no discrimination against women,' she said.

'In many cases women choose children at the expense of their careers, and I am fed up with people lecturing them that they are wrong to do so.'

Women workers are under pressure to give up their jobs because of the growing cost of childcare, according to another study.

Insurers Aviva estimated that around 32,000 women have stopped work over the past year to look after their children full-time.

Some female workers were left with just £120 a month after the costs of childcare and work travel and clothing were considered.

Louise Colley, head of protection at Aviva and the mother of four-year-old twins, predicts even more mothers will stop work.

'Many families with young children face a challenge as they balance their income with the cost of childcare,' she said.

'As care costs rise, it is quite possible we will see more and more couples relying on one salary while the other person looks after the children. This is simply because they may actually be worse off if both people work."

 

Independent Women’s ‘Six Stages of Women’ recognises the dilemmas many women face when juggling various aspects of themselves, their aspirations and the practicalities of family life.  Whilst many of these decisions will never be easy ones, having your finances organised and flexibly arranged by an understanding and empathetic adviser can go a long way towards facilitating the decision process itself.

Contact us for a free initial consultation  

Who do you believe?

The phrase 'rollercoaster' is often over-used - but can you really think of a better one right now? From 'Black August' to 'market freefall' to 'potential global depression' and 'don't catch a falling knife' on the one hand to 'it's a great time to invest', 'it's a great time to look at buying property if you have cash' and 'p/e ratios are undervalued' on the other.
What does a person do? Especially one who has a moderate level of savings, a less than certain pension pot, a house whose value is increasingly difficult to pinpoint and some decisions to make about where and how to save and what to plan for the future?
What makes things even more unusual at present is the global social unrest; whether it's fighting for freedom and democracy in the Middle East or seemingly fighting for trainers and TVs in UK city centres, everyone pretty much agrees that there are a lot of problems that need sorting. It can feel pretty overwhelming.
Whilst none of us wants to abdicate social responsbility and certainly not, at the VERY least, social awareness, there does come a point at which you can't stress yourself to death worrying about what you can't change. But you can take repsonsibility for your own part of the world and try to get a grip of that.

Increasing numbers of people are concerned and anxious about money in 2011; we still (rightly, I would argue) haven't built back up our trust with Banks after so many  let us down so badly in 2008/9 and generally the Banks used to be the first financial port of call, especially if you were fairly risk averse. Increasingly, banks have revealed themselves not to be the optimum choice for many people - they have been too large, too unfocused on individual customers (unless they have huge amounts of cash - the charrmingly monikered 'High Net Worth Individuals') and too generalist.
Independent financial advice is, more and more, proving its mettle; your adviser works for you, the client. You pay for what you get, what you see and what you like. You choose what you pay and you agree it up front. You stop things and change them if you don't like them.
Your adviser MUST be independent - not tied to specific providers, in order that you get a choice of the whole market to match your needs.
You build up a relationship of trust rather than have to ring a call centre or know that you are one of millions.
You can talk to your adviser openly about changes that have happened in your life - because we genuinely want and need to know about them, if we are to offer the best advice. Our 'Six Stage of Women' is testament to that - it's crucial http://bit.ly/qspLfT
No one has a crystal ball - but finding someone who cares about you and your needs and who creates a tailored and flexible plan for you has to up the odds for feeling more in control of your finances. Expert advice and analysis can help you navigate through the coming months and years and really make the most of what you have and what you want.
http://bit.ly/oGDXMs

Turmoil in the markets

We are conscious that our clients will all have been watching or listening to the ongoing news reports (some of which barely stop short of inducing some form of alarm, if not panic) and will be aware of the difficulties in both the US and the Eurozone, which is impacting global stockmarkets.

We appreciate that this can make investors nervous and current events are definitely of concern. We are not in any way trying to underplay the significance or impact of the turmoil that is happening around the world.  However, we would wish to remind clients that investments are for the medium to long term and we would urge people not to pay too much attention to short term volatility.  Historically, investors who have chosen to exit falling markets and reinvest once they have recovered, have seen substantially lower returns over the long term as they have not benefited from what could be a sudden and sharp upswing.

Where relevant, EIC and Independent Women have already taken steps for all their clients over the last 18 months to reduce their exposure to the Eurozone and increase exposure to the UK in favour of global markets, as we felt that volatility in the UK would be less pronounced over that period. 

We still feel that investment opportunities remain and that there are strong prospects for returns over the medium to long term, although we cannot of course guarantee this.  We continue to review our clients portfoilios and make changes where we consider it relevant or appropriate, depending on the clients' own risk appetite, the balance of their portfolios and any changes in circumtance or requirement.

There are many views on how long this volatility will last - ranging from a few days, to six months or beyond. The truth is that no one has a crystal ball, but economics does goes in cycles and investments are made for the longer term. Those who are close to retirement age may be concerned or confused as to how this could impact the amount of pension they will receive. Given the complexity of pension legisaltion and the many changes we have seen in 2011, anyone who is approaching retirement and who does not yet have an independent financial adviser, should seek out some expert advice.

Remember that savings, unlike investments, are not going to fall as a result of stock market moves.
Interest rates are low for savers, but there is now greater protection for their money than there was at the height of the banking crisis.
Full compensation up to £85,000 per saver, per authorised institution is paid to those who deposit money in an authorised bank or building society if it goes bust.
For investment products, the first £50,000 is covered per person, per firm.

The best thing to do is try to mix and balance what you have - however much or little you feel that may be at present - and to plan for the future. Expert advice can really earn its spurs at tricky times like this and help you navigate some of the confusion and complexity.