A response from The Australian Financial Review's Editor in Chief - Women's Agenda

A response from The Australian Financial Review’s Editor in Chief

Yesterday I reported, with disappointment, the composition of the keynote speakers at The Australian Financial Review’s upcoming Banking & Wealth Summit.

I have just received this response from the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Michael Stuchbury. I am heartened that the notable absence of women is considered a problem. I look forward to it being addressed.

The Australian Financial Review has promoted the cause of getting more women into senior corporate roles for more than two decades, including through our long running corporate woman column. Just last week we prominently featured the slow progress on this score on page one of our print edition. It regrettably remains the case, as Georgina Dent points out, that the small percentage of women in banking and finance means they can be hard to secure for conferences, are highly sought after and obviously can’t commit to every speaking event.

We found that too when we put together our speaker list for what will be the premier banking and finance conference in Australia this year. With the departure of Gail Kelly from Westpac, there are no female CEOs of major Australian financial institutions. There are no women at the top of the three financial regulators represented at the conference. None of the main political figures in this area are women. And the woman who has been most closely involved in big recent financial and wealth events declined our invitation, along with some others.

Nevertheless we are delighted with the calibre of the female speakers we have attracted to the conference and are putting in efforts to bolster their numbers. They will be joined at the conference by senior women in the organising team and among the session chairs, including Alana Piper from Informa, Sally Loane and Pauline Vamos, and, from the Financial Review, Sally Patten and Jennifer Hewett.

Later this year, the Financial Review aims to explore the deeper structural barriers to great female participation in corporate Australia at our annual Women of Influence awards. And we will take the feedback on board and continue to pursue top-level female speaker talent through the rest of the AFR National Policy Series.

Michael Stutchbury
Editor in Chief
The Australian Financial Review

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