Seeking to highlight women who not only outperform within the financial sector, but who actively support other women in finance, Joanna Fielding, Chief Financial Officer of Standard Chartered Bank China, was considered in an extensive 2009 survey by World Finance as one of the top women operating in the field. Not only has Ms Fielding held senior finance positions at the bank since her early 30s, in 2006, at the age of 37, she was asked by the bank’s CEO, Mervyn Davies (now Lord Davies of Abersoch, Minister for UK Trade and Investment) to establish and chair the bank’s Group Women’s Council. Last year, Ms Fielding also became the first woman to chair the British Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
World Finance caught up with Standard Chartered Bank China’s CFO to discuss her career and how Standard Chartered is taking diversity in banking to a new level.
How has your career in finance at Standard Chartered evolved?
Joining Standard Chartered 12 years ago in London, I soon found myself in New York on a secondment. My original plan was to stay a few months on a short term contract while I was in the process of applying to INSEAD to do my MBA. However it quickly became obvious that I was a good fit for the bank, and vice versa. It was the first time in my career where I felt I was actually making a tangible difference and I could apply my financial training to real business issues. I never did go to INSEAD, but my career has gone from strength to strength.
I was also fortunate at the beginning of my 30s to work for Mervyn Davies, who has a knack for identifying talent and helping people realise their potential. Because of the faith placed in me by Mervyn and subsequent managers, including our current Group Chief Executive, Peter Sands and Jaspal Bindra, CEO for Asia (who is also Chair of the Group’s Diversity and Inclusion Council), I have had amazing opportunities to learn and grow – not only through the positions I have held, but also as a result of living and working in different cultures across our footprint.
As finance is a traditionally male-dominated industry, what advice do you give to women who are just starting?
To be successful and achieve one’s potential, you need to believe in yourself. One of the challenges many women face is what we call ‘self-limiting beliefs’. Women will tend to emphasise what they are not good at, rather than reinforce what they are good at. As a result, women are less likely to push themselves forward, or to take a risk by going for a role that may be out of their comfort zone. This is exacerbated by the lack of role models in some organisations – women who have not compromised their own individuality, and who have still made it to the top.
Why is Standard Chartered increasingly being known for its approach to diversity?
Diversity is a natural strength for the bank and has become a distinctive part of our brand. We operate in over 70 of the world’s most dynamic markets and employ more than 70,000 diverse employees, located mainly across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Our chief executive also leads from the top, and actively supports diversity and inclusion both internally and externally, for example through his membership of the World Bank Private Sector Leaders’ Forum.
The cornerstone of our approach is that we integrate diversity into everything we do. Our ambition is to lead the way through diversity and inclusion, supporting not just our employees, but also our customers and our communities. We believe that this inclusive approach will enable us to understand and serve all our stakeholders better – and I would argue this has become even more relevant following the global financial crisis. Banks need to not only ensure that they are economically responsible, but also that they are socially relevant to the communities they operate in.
How exactly do you support the diversity of your customers?
The bank values the diversity of our clients and we’re committed to developing a deep understanding of each customer’s needs. This involves adapting products and services and tailoring them to be appropriate and accessible.
For example, research has shown that women are powerful, yet often overlooked customers. Since 2006, the bank has launched specific propositions for women in several of our African markets, offering a package of products tailored to their needs and interests. Launching the products has given the bank a first mover advantage, market differentiation and better loyalty from female clients. Another targeted proposition for women is the all female branches in India and Pakistan. These are seen as safer environments for many women who feel more comfortable conducting business with female employees. For entrepreneurs, the Bank offers business instalment loans designed specifically for women.
So is this customer diversity just about women?
No, not at all. Take Islamic Banking for instance. With a global network that covers much of the Muslim world, we are ideally placed to play a prominent role in Islamic banking. Standard Chartered’s Islamic Banking has been widely recognised, winning a number of awards since inception, including Best Islamic Services from an International Bank from World Finance in 2009.
The bank believes that with wealth comes responsibility. The Standard Chartered Private Bank, for example, helps clients and their families invest in a range of philanthropic options. The bank has combined its internal fiduciary and sustainability expertise with specialist, independent external philanthropy advisers. One option available to clients is to contribute donations to the bank’s Seeing is Believing Programme, with Standard Chartered matching each donation (up to the USD 20 million target). Seeing is Believing is a collaboration of Standard Chartered Bank and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness that works to help tackle avoidable blindness. With 45 million blind people in the world and given two thirds of people with avoidable blindness are women, this is yet another way in which the bank’s commitment to diversity has transpired.
Our focus on diversity is also relevant to our Wholesale Banking business as well. Take microfinance for example – most of our portfolio is in Africa and South Asia, with 80 percent of the end users being women. After committing to providing USD 500 million to microfinance institutions in 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), we are now well on track to meet this target. But again, it isn’t all focused on gender. In 2007 in China for example, the bank launched a very successful project, now in its second phase, with one of our corporate clients to provide financing to cotton farmers in Urumqi, and at the end of 2008 we opened our first Village Bank in Helingeer, Inner Mongolia. These initiatives all support financial inclusion and reinforce how banks must be socially relevant to the communities in which they operate.
What role does the Group Women’s Council play?
The Council champions not only the advancement of women in the workplace, but also women’s empowerment in the community and the importance of women as customers. The Council is made up of 12 women from markets as diverse as Columbia, Ghana, India and China.
Our activities are incredibly varied. In terms of the workplace, we have developed women’s leadership programmes for talented women. Over the last 15 months, we ran these for women from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Korea. We have also established women’s networks and mentoring programmes.
On the customer side, in October 2009, we hosted the Global Banking Alliance for Women’s annual summit in Singapore. This was followed by The Standard Chartered Bank 2009 Women in Business Summit where we brought together 100 successful female customers from retail, SME and corporate clients, alongside representatives from government bodies and global institutions such as the IFC and the World Bank to share, learn and network.
At this event we also launched the ‘Standard Chartered Women in Business Resource Centre’ (www.standardchartered.com/sme-banking/resourcecentre), a website targeted at female entrepreneurs. The website offers educational modules for women who are starting and growing SMEs with topics ranging from cash flow to negotiation.
We recognise that financial literacy is the first step to increasing women’s entrepreneurship and at the first Asia CGI meeting in 2008, the bank committed to provide financial education to at least 5,000 women in Asia. Basic financial literacy training is also provided by the bank’s ‘Goal’ programme. Goal provides sport and life skills education to transform the lives of young underprivileged girls. Piloted in India, Goal is currently expanding to an additional four markets and aims to reach 100,000 girls over the next four years.
While Standard Chartered was one of the few banks to emerge from the economic crisis relatively unscathed, will you continue focusing on diversity given the challenging economic environment?
It is even more important now than before the financial crisis. With changing client expectations, only the banks that show a long-term commitment to their people, customers and communities will survive. Adopting a strategy of diversity, however, isn’t just about being a force for good. The return on investment is real – greater creativity and innovation, better local knowledge, stronger customer loyalty and improved access to talent. In today’s financial environment, I don’t know any bank that can afford to ignore a potential competitive advantage like this.
