Britain's top female bosses are helping to mentor four young women from the Birmingham area as part of a unique accountancy apprenticeship scheme.
The young students are training with leading financial companies such as EY and Deloitte in the West Midlands as part of a pioneering programme run by social mobility charity Leadership Through Sport & Business.
The group travelled to London this week to meet with female business leaders from the financial industry across the UK as part of the charity’s initiative to improve gender equality in the workplace.
The apprentices (pictured left to right) are Nahima Begum, 21, (who is an apprentice at Deloitte), Charlotte McClair, 17, (an apprentice at Rochesters), Radha Kaur, 18 (also an apprentice at Deloitte) and Molly Brownlie, 19 (an apprentice at EY).
The young women were given help and advice about how to build their careers during a Q & A and they were later given an opportunity to mingle informally with the business leaders during an intimate networking session.
Caroline Adair of Leadership Through Sport & Business, said: “Men are very good at networking in order to improve their chances of success in business but research shows that young women are less likely to do the same. This event was a fantastic opportunity for our female apprentices to build lasting relationships with some of the country’s most senior women.”
The event was chaired by Denise Wilson, OBE, Chief Executive of the Davies Review, which was commissioned by the Government to tackle gender inequality. Speakers included Jane Magill, Managing Director of Macquarie Bank (which hosted the event), Emily Cox (Director of Public Affairs at Virgin Money - co-author of the HM Treasury report ‘Empowering Productivity: Harnessing the Talents of Women in Financial Services), Kathy Walton (Managing Director of Kaplan) and Meera Judge, (Manager, Risk Management Policy, Governance & Regulation at CME Group).
Other business leaders who attended included Susan Allen (Chief Transformation Officer at Santander), Laura Barlow (Head of Restructuring at RBS) and Lorraine Barclay (Head of Global Business Services at ICAP).
As part of their apprenticeships, the young women are studying for an accounting qualification in conjunction with South & City College Birmingham as well as taking part in social programmes organized by The Aston Villa Foundation.
Women account for around 25% of the people on the board of FTSE 100 companies (which thanks to the Davies Review is up from a historical average of less than half that figure). The Government is currently calling for all FTSE 350 companies to increase representation of women on their boards to 33% within the next five years.
Caroline Adair said: “We hope that with the right help and mentoring, our apprentices will go on to become the business leaders of the future. We take on both young men and women and our own target is that within the near future around 50% of our apprentices will be female.”
Leadership Through Sport & Business works through community schemes at a number of leading football clubs (including Villa, Chelsea, West Ham and Leyton Orient) in order to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The charity was founded in 2011 by David Pinchin, former CEO of Tradition Financial Services. Prominent supporters include Lord O’Neill of Gatley, Commercial Secretary to The Treasury, and Michael Spencer, Founder and CEO of ICAP. Its patrons include Lord Justice Pitchford, Lord Davies of Abersoch and Virginia Wade OBE.
Photograph by Dianna Bonner www.worldvisionphotos.co.uk