Women in Banking (WIB), the initiative for promoting the role of women in Spanish banking, has launched in Santander Group City. WIB was publicly launched with the support of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB) and supporting banks: Santander, BBVA, Sabadell, ING, Deutsche Bank, Citi and BNY Mellon.
The event included two round tables that were attended by the founders of the WIB initiative and representatives from the AEB's "Women's Committee". Alejandra Kindelán, who has been nominated as the new chairman of AEB, was the moderator for one of these round tables and the other was moderated by the expert in innovation and leadership, and founder of Mindset, Mónica Quintana, who also opened and closed the event.
These discussion tables were used to highlight the role of this initiative and reflect on its goals, while also identifying the challenges facing women in the banking sector. They addressed interesting subject areas such as the growing number of women in roles of responsibility within the industry, benchmark practices that may help to continue improving that presence and the benefits of this greater representation.
Actions and strategies were also presented for implementation in relation to the visibility of women in the financial sector and details were also provided of sponsorship programmes, events, conferences, working networks and talent identification and support initiatives that WIB aims to implement going forwards.
Women in Banking is an extremely necessary initiative that will allow us to lend visibility to and highlight the contribution of women in the banking sector, identifying and driving measures to promote inclusion and diversity.
About Women in Banking
Women in Banking has been created to lead and drive the change by raising awareness about the value of women in decision-making roles in the Spanish banking arena. The goal of WIB is to become a benchmark for the financial sector in the area of diversity and inclusion of women, lending visibility to female talent and inspiring new generations through models that can be used as a point of reference. The initiative is being backed by eight financial institutions with a presence in Spain and by the Spanish Banking Association (AEB).
The following speakers from the initiative's steering group took part in the first round table at the WIB launch: Mayte Valverde (Banco Santander), Mayka Adrio (BBVA), Elia Hermida (Citi) and Ana Arias (BNY Mellon). And the second one comprised representatives from the AEB's Women's Committee: Mónica López-Monís (Banco Santander), Elena Alfaro (BBVA), María Alonso (ING), Amaya Llovet (Deutsche Bank) and María Abascal (AEB).