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Our Women in Finance Charter commitments:

Since signing up to the Women in Finance Charter, we’ve worked hard to make progress against our target, reflecting the commitment that we have to building strong female representation at all levels of our organisation. When signing up to the charter we had 32% female representation in senior management roles (the top two layers of our organisation) and set ourselves a target to increase this to 40% in our senior management roles by 2020.

Having made good progress, for 2022 we increased our Women in Finance target to 45% female representation within the top 2 layers of Virgin Money, and have since achieved this target. For 2023 we kept our Women in Finance target at 45% but extended the population to the top three layers of our organisation to ensure a focus on representation at all levels of leadership and creating a sustainable succession pipeline of talent. This is also in alignment with our gender representation target we have set ourselves as an organisation, to achieve 45%-55% female representation within our top three layers of leadership by September 2025. We are delighted that as of the 22nd of September 2023, we had 51.5% female representation in positions within out top three layers of leadership. This target was met through a number of strategies including:

  • Reviewed approach to inclusive recruitment by encouraging mixed-gender interview panels and diverse shortlists as well as rolling out training for hiring managers on how to mitigate bias in recruitment.
  • Building support programmes to help women take control of their career journey including our   “Welcome Back” programme for colleagues returning from maternity or parental leave to increase confidence, personal resilience and support the transition back to work.
  • Introducing best in class training for all colleagues through our springboard programme designed to help female colleagues enhance their skills, confidence, and profile. This provides colleagues with the opportunity to build on their professional development and set personal achievable goals to support this.
  • Strong accountability: We hold ourselves to account on our commitments on diversity by providing regular updates on our progress to both the leadership team and our Board. Alongside this we feel it is crucial to regularly update colleagues too to ensure that we provide visibility on the work we are doing to ensure gender balance across the bank.
  • Listened to our people through surveys and focus groups to understand how we can shape and progress our gender representation ambitions.
  • A Life More Virgin - consistently reviewing our working practices and ensuring they are not a barrier to progression by continuing to review our approach to how and where we work.

While we’re proud of the progress that we’ve made, we are conscious that we need to remain committed to our efforts and not only drive actions that improve representation, but that also create a truly inclusive and respectful culture. To this end, BRAVER (our enterprise-wide allyship initiative) is a critical enabler to support and accelerate us towards our ambition.

2016 Empowering Productivity Report

This Report and its recommendations are about fairness, equality and inclusion for men and women. More women than men start out in Financial Services but, as they progress, the majority fall out, especially at middle management level. This leaves almost all of the top jobs in the hands of men.

Achieving a balanced workforce at all levels in Financial Services will undoubtedly improve culture, behaviour, outcomes, profitability and productivity.

Nearly 3,500 people – men and women – contributed to this Report through a variety of channels and I am delighted to be able to make their views heard in this way.

"Only 50% of women, compared to 70% of men believe they have an equal opportunity to advance regardless of their personal characteristics or circumstances."

Broadminded Roundtable

"New Financial's sample of 200 firms active in UK Financial Services showed an average of 23% female representation on Boards, but only 14% on Executive Committees."

Broadminded Roundtable

"We're all used to having bosses that are men, pilots that are men, train drivers that are men. We're all used to having secretaries that are women. We need to have role models for ourselves but we also need to have role models for our children."

Broadminded Roundtable

You can find more information about Broadminded at www.broadminded.org

The Charter

The Charter is a commitment by HM Treasury and signatory firms to work together to build a more balanced and fair industry. Firms that sign up to this Charter are pledging to become one of the best businesses in the sector.

Contact

You can contact the Virgin Money team about the Report at: commission@virginmoney.com

You can contact HMT about the Charter at: womeninfinance@hmtreasury.gov.uk