How can banks use their social responsibility programs to work with women around the world? Marissa Weiner, Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer, Webster Bank, and Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO, Women's World Banking, join Chana Schoenberger, Editor-in-Chief, American Banker, in a live in-person conversation on International Women's Day from the Arizent Studios in New York City.
Transcript:
Chana Schoenberger:
Hello and welcome to the Arizent Leaders Forum. I have a wonderful panel with being here today for International Women's Day. So welcome to my wonderful guests. I have right here Mary Ellen Iskenderian, who is the president and CEO of Women's World Banking. It's a global nonprofit devoted to giving low income women in the developing world access to the financial tools and resources they require to achieve security and prosperity, which is something we could really use in the US too. And then on the far side here, we have Marissa Weidner, who is the Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer for Webster Bank. Webster is a $70 billion asset bank based in Waterbury, Connecticut. So thanks for coming.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
Well, thank you for having us.
Marissa Weidner:
Thanks for having us.
Chana Schoenberger:
And we're doing this livestream in front of a live studio audience of Arizent employees all here to celebrate. That's our applause track. So let's kick this off. What can banks do to further the careers of their women employees?
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
Sorry, you don't, don't mess around.
Chana Schoenberger:
You know it. No messing.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
Well, we were talking before we were talking for real about whether we see women leaving finance. So it almost feels a little bit like the stuff I know from research, the stuff that we've seen in the partner organizations that we work with, is still valid. But I do know that in, maybe just take a step back. The way Women's World Banking operates is we work through local finance partners. We're currently working through 60 financial service providers. Banks, 30% of them are fintechs, which is really very exciting. Insurance companies, mobile network operators, neobanks, still some microfinance institutions, but increasingly less. And we're seeing much more of a mainstream interest in serving our client base. And so when we're looking at what they can do and how they can increase the representation of women in all levels of leadership, from governance to leadership and management, to the boots on the ground, the one thing that just keeps coming up is everybody seems to have embraced this idea that diverse teams are able to solve complex problems.
There's some great data now from the Credit Suisse 3000 to any number of risks that look at the hard line, bottom line, return-related factors of more diverse teams. But there's been some interesting research showing if you bring a more diverse group into a team and then just kind of whack them on the head until they fall into the set of norms that were there before you tried to make the more diverse. A square peg, round hole. Exactly. That was the visualization I had. As I was talking, you sort of lose all that benefit and maybe even make a step backwards because you've got a major percentage of your team kind of thinking twice, not using their instincts, not bringing their lived experience to that role. So I, I'd say, at the risk of being cute, let women be women, bring their lived experience, bring who they are to and to drive that change in the organization and not try to make them into something that they're not.
Chana Schoenberger:
Men.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
There you go. That's a good point. You said it.
Marissa Weidner:
That's a good point. That's the whole basis of DEIB and being able to bring your true self to work and being able to thrive. But from a standpoint of how we can, cause I think your question was like how we can help women rise to higher levels in the banking industry. A couple things. I'd say probably most financial services companies have ERGs or BRGs or affinity groups or whatever they're referred to. And I think they're very important. At Webster, we have our Webster Women's Network, and I'm greatly, I actually get to be one of the executive sponsors of that group. So investing in these BRGs and specifically in this women's BRG I would say is important. Making sure that you're bringing the talent in at the very beginning, truly representing diversity.
Right now we do have probably about 62% of our workforce is women. But then you have to follow that trend and where does that go? Good news is our managers represent over 50% women as well. And when you get to the senior leadership levels, we're at 36-ish percent. So it does fall off. But I would say a couple things. One, make sure that you have the development programs in place that, you know, can work with your women, but more importantly build confidence in women. Because I think that some of the trail-off, my opinion is anyway, is that when you start getting to the more senior roles, especially in financial services, I think some women might be intimidated that maybe they don't have the financial acumen to go into those senior leadership roles. And what are we doing to build the confidence today, equip you with the tools to have that financial accumen be able to run the P&Ls, be able to understand the balance sheet, the income statements and all of that so that you're more well positioned to be able to go into those senior leadership roles with confidence.
Chana Schoenberger:
So that's a training question.
Marissa Weidner:
Yeah, I think it's a, but no, so there's a training element, but there's a confidence building element. So you just talked about sponsors and mentors. So how are the sponsors and mentors instilling that confidence in women to say, you got this, you're going to be good. You got this. I think we have an imposter syndrome. There was a book that was out on that, right? Yeah, this imposter syndrome. So really instilling confidence in women. And I think when you have a confident woman, nothing's going to get in that woman's way.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
I'm a huge believer in sponsorship and I was very much the beneficiary. I had a long career at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank before I came to Women's World Banking. And it's so interesting, though, seeing financial institution after financial institution, really, really trying to incorporate mentorship and sponsorship.
So I'd really be interested in your experience of this. What I have now heard kind of late at night, people relaxing over a cocktail perhaps and really admitting this, that male sponsors are really uncomfortable giving negative feedback. The women are really uncomfortable giving them maybe a hard story and sorry, because they're afraid of being alone in a room with a woman who's going to cry when she hears that. And it's almost the fear of that. I have now heard this from so many banks where they've really struggled to get men comfortable with giving honest feedback. Women will say, I've been told I'm doing a great job. Why am I not pressing? But then you talk to the manager and you find maybe the job wasn't so great, did you tell her that? And then the answer comes out, no, you didn't. I wasn't comfortable. So I mean, I don't have an answer for this.
I don't know whether you've encountered this. That's, but it's like fascinating. It's kind of nuts, but men are so uncomfortable giving that feedback
Chana Schoenberger:
Because that's discrimination. A woman employee deserves to have the same feedback that a male employee has.
Marissa Weidner:
Absolutely. And the one thing I will say is if I look at my own career trajectory, originally I'd say my biggest champion was a woman, but thereafter I've had men championing for me and giving them very, yeah, yeah.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
I never had that problem. I haven't had anybody pulling punches with me, which I'm grateful for. So I didn't have that experience.
Chana Schoenberger:
But you can't fix it if you don't know what's a problem.
Marissa Weidner:
No, no. But that is fascinating and certainly hopefully something that, yeah, we do something about that. Yeah, we need to do something about that because that feels fixable, but you got to name it before you.
Chana Schoenberger:
Well, also, the number of women who actually do cry when getting bad feedback is probably Infinitesimal.
Marissa Weidner:
Yeah, I'd say that maybe at one point that was an issue, but I don't see that.
Chana Schoenberger:
I mean, they might go home and cry, but they're probably not going to cry right there.
Marissa Weidner:
Well, there's that saying, put on your big girl pants and deal with it, right?
Chana Schoenberger:
That's right. That's right. Absolutely. But it's interesting though, because I, I'm doing a project where I'd like to meet as many of the big bank CEOs as possible. And so I pulled a list of the top 50 banks by assets, and yours is on there. And I have all of the information about who's at the top of these and do you know how many women are CEOs? Of the top 50 banks? Two, one, just, it's literally just one. It's only one.
Marissa Weidner:
So KeyBank, is it a woman? Anyone?
Chana Schoenberger:
I mean, so there have been women and those women have retired. And right now this is the situation. So these ERGs, as you say, I mean the most famous one is Goldman Sachs used to have 85 Broads, which was named after their building at 85 Broad Street, just down the street. And that became a big successful thing. It spun off. JP Morgan Chase has women on the move. I think every bank has a woman's network and there have been all these conferences and they do all of these formal things and they're so useful. And yet there are no women CEOs in bank. Why is that? What can we do about this?
Marissa Weidner:
I think we have to make sure that we're giving women the opportunity to lead the various segments of the business so that they're really well-rounded in their position to be able to be CEO to encourage women to step up and want those roles to really be aggressive. Because it's one thing to say that we don't have women in leadership roles, but we also need to make sure that women are standing up and saying, I want those leaders roles. And I think that's important. I think sometimes I can use my own experience. I've had a history of sitting around and waiting for it to happen and waiting for it to fall in my lap. And you can't wait around for things to happen. You have to make them happen. And I think we need to instill that in women, that they can control their own destiny, just like any other human being on this planet.
And so how do we encourage them and really push them towards that, the BRGs or the ERGs, that's a great forum to start that conversation and to really develop that. But I think we have to do that as executive leadership teams of these organizations as well.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
And I think there's a piece of it that's the flip side of that. You were talking about Catalyst earlier. Yeah. They've done some really great research that a woman will think she has to have 110% of the qualifications for a job where a man, ah, I've got most of this. I'm going to give it a shot. So I do think that women, to your point, kind of need to put themselves out there. If they want it, they, they're going to have to ask for it. And they're going to have, I don't have 110%, but dammit, I've got 85 or whatever. And I can learn that.
Marissa Weidner:
The truth is, if you know how to solve problems, if you know how to lead, you don't need to know every element of what you're leading. You need to know how to find the right people to help you be effective and be able to lead. And sometimes we think we need to know everything to your point.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
But I think it's also to the CEO question, I think it has to be important to shareholders too. And the term activist shareholder has a very specific meaning. And it's a kind of unfortunate because bringing your values to bear on the way you vote as a shareholder is activist as far as I'm concerned. And so if you're --
Chana Schoenberger:
Well, first you'd have to get people to vote. I mean, the majority of retail shareholders never vote their shares.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
Yes, great point. That's a great point. That's a great point.
Chana Schoenberger:
Just like Americans don't vote in elections, which they should also do. Everyone should vote. Please go vote. Yeah, no. So the other interesting thing about women is that many women, not, some women just do everything they're supposed to do in the order. They're supposed do it, but women tend to not have as linear a career path. And that is challenging in financial services where there's a hierarch of holes. And is there a way for banks to help employees with these issues? Maybe they've taken time off or they've done something different, or they've stick to the nonprofit sector, started their own company and they haven't progressed from analyst to associate to VP to director on their way straight up.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
I want to believe that we are in the midst of a complete shift in the way we think about work, role of work where we work that will get added into that agenda of things that are for being rethought, revisited. I do know throughout the world and the banks that we're talking to, making it possible for women come in and out, always seemingly always related to care, giving responsibilities that a might have to step out has really risen top talent. There is a war for talent and there and there are more and more financial services providers, at least in the emerging markets that we're working closely with that are reckoning. The value of childcare is outstripped by the value of keeping that employee, getting her back into the job earlier, happier. So I'm hopeful that this is a trend.
Marissa Weidner:
A colleague actually sent me an article, I don't know if you've seen it. Amazon now has a whole re-entry program coming back into their workforce. I thought that was pretty fascinating. And bringing women back into the force with project specific assignments so that they can get their footing again and get right back into it. I thought that was interesting. I do think that the way we work now, to your point, has changed dramatically. I think it's going to offer women an opportunity to do both, whereas maybe they might not have felt like they could do both previously. I think it's incumbent on us to look at women's resumes that might have taken a break and come back and look for what did you do that can be translated into the workforce. I think women can do a better job in general in terms of positioning themselves to come back into the workforce through their resume. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for what we do outside of work that really does translate into leadership and project management and managing budgets and all of these different skill sets that are transferable.
So I think we have got to do a better job making sure women are positioned in the right light and then as employers to seek to see how the skills are transferable and make it more accommodating for them to come back in.
Chana Schoenberger:
The consulting firms and law firms have done some interesting things in this area because they, they've created extra tracks where you can have a part-time, but still hardcore track. So it's not a mommy track. It's like when I'm here, I'm doing my job and then other days I'm not here, which is an interesting goal. So just to shift gears, we're talking about women bankers. Let's talk about women clients. What are the big issues that women clients are facing right now? Customers, small business owners. I know you wrote a book on it.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
Yeah, no. Yeah. This is my, my, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for the helpful. No, I mean, we see in this country too, women receiving, I'm sure you've all heard the statistic a million times. Women received 2% in the venture capital that that's available. And interestingly, they're only, they're receiving a third less commercial credit. I just looked at the statistic for another panel I was on last week. I hadn't thought there was such a disparity when it came to actual credit for women owned businesses as well, which was kind of depressing as well. And that was here in this country. I mean, in the places that I'm working, it's the number one issue for women owned businesses is collateral. And so many countries that we're in still require the only collateral is land or built pretty. And poor people in general are not owning a lot of land or built property. And women even. So still many countries around the world, even relatively affluent Chile, a woman, even if she brings a piece of property into the marriage, it becomes joint property.
And her husband does not have to consult her around the disposal of that property, nor can she use it without his signature for collateral for a law. Wow. So just the mere issue, 80 -- something like 86% small business loans in country are secured with movable collateral. So one of the big policy priorities for women's world banking is working with countries to establish movable collateral registries in their country. And if you accept not just a vehicle or the piece of equipment that the business is financing as the collateral and accept financial collateral, so receivables, you're seeing an enormous impact on women owned businesses. Just by letting that become the security that's used.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's terrifying.
Marissa Weidner:
Yeah. It's actually quite disturbing to think what I come into the marriage with. Yeah. Yeah. I no longer have any control over. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, be grateful for where I am.
I would say a couple things. First, making sure that women understand the products and the services that are available to them as small business owners. I think we can do a better job of educating them about what's available. I don't think in some cases women know what's available, because they just haven't gotten that information. I know for Webster, one of the things that we've done, we have a whole community investment strategy that we launched, but as part of that community investment strategy, we're really focusing on small businesses and specifically minority and women owned businesses. We've actually hired a dedicated team just to service this segment so that relationship managers will only work with minority and women owned businesses. And help get out in the community and educate and provide that knowledge as to, okay, this is where you're at with your business. This is what we can do, but if we can't, because it doesn't make sense for us as an institution to be able to fund you for whatever the reason might be, let me introduce you to our partner, a community development finance institution that might be able to help you because maybe you're not at that place where a traditional loan is going to make sense for you.
So there's a lot of ways that we can do better. And so that's what we're working on now as a bank to make sure that we're putting the right information out on the street, if you will, so that folks understand what's available. And then also making sure that we have more people available to service this segment of the market.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
If I could just say one other thing, because you opened up by saying, oh, we could use that in the United States, and you both were kind enough to reference my book. When I first had a proposal for it, it was published by an academic publisher, and they insisted on having a blind review of it. All the reviewers said, you have to write a chapter on the United States. So I didn't really know how these issues laid out in the us did a bunch of research and was just stunned to see essentially so much has its roots in that pay gap.
We talk about the pay gap all the time, but women are starting businesses at a dramatically faster rate. Black women, even more. But then if they've got student debt, which women are graduating at higher rates than men are, if they're carrying more of that student debt within three years of starting a job, the pay gap kicks in. We, we've gotten better with entry level salaries, but it starts very, very early in a woman's career. If she's saddled with the debt, has less income to retire it with, her ability to then start a business, nothing to leverage, she's already got the debt, she's not going to be able to borrow. It's this really vicious cycle that in a lot of ways really hurts with that payout and that inability to kind of retire the debt, get off on a steady footing. I'm not going to get into whether college should be as expensive as it is and all of that, but just on the parity, the parity issues.
Chana Schoenberger:
That one, you can't pin on banks. It's not banks.
Marissa Weidner:
Hang on here. We're not pinning all of the same things, right?
Chana Schoenberger:
No, but what do women have to do with financial inclusion and what can banks do about it?
Marissa Weidner:
Everything. Women have everything to do with financial inclusion. I mean, they're representative of the world. So from my perspective, it's everything. And what banks can do is make sure that we are creating the products and services that these small business owners need to help them advance their business and grow their business. Making sure that we have, quite frankly, we go down to the basics, the financial literacy curriculum, so that women understand how to build wealth from an early age. So when you think about, I mean, we have finance labs that we've been launching across our footprint, and you think about targeting kids at the earliest stages, and women are kids as well as men.
So making them understand or not making them, but helping them to understand the decisions that they're making from the earliest stages and the impact that that's going to have long term. So a lot of the work that we do is really around trying to educate folks specifically in LMI communities who might not have access to the financial literacy curriculum. I think, you know, and I were talking, and I put this out there all the time. My son came to me and I was like, you're going to need to build credit, and this is my son. And he was like, I got it. I'm going to get a credit card. No problem. All I have to do is pay my minimum payment every month. I was horrified. I was like, hang on a second. You know what I do for a living? We need to have a conversation.
But if people don't have those conversations, how are folks going to know? So this is about women. Young women need to have those conversations at the earliest stages. They need to understand the implications of the schools that they're selecting and what that debt's going to look like. Because maybe they might make a different decision, maybe they won't. But at least if they go in, they understand, they know, and they can make the right financially sound decisions going forward. They can build their credit, they can start building their wealth at the earliest stages, enabling them to grow their business, et cetera, and so forth. But we have to start young. And you asked what banks could do. I think that we have a responsibility to be out in the community and educating about the implications of financial decisions that are being made at the earliest stage.
Chana Schoenberger:
Okay. We are, we're here. We're nearly out of time. So I just want to pause here and see if anybody in the audience has a question we can answer.
Audience member:
Yes. I'm interested in whether the marriage rates, has that affected — the fact that now — has the marriage rate at all been affected?
Chana Schoenberger:
Okay. So this was a question about what you were just saying about the Chilean legal structure. Has the marriage rate in Chile I guess fallen because women want to start businesses?
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
It's a great question. No, and it's really unfair to kind of blacklist Chile. They are the only country that has collected sex disaggregated financial data for more than 30 years and the financial system seriously. And so there's a whole set of financial products that are particularly interestingly, housing credit, housing loan products for women. That is directly based on what we know about the way women use their money. So it's even weirder that they haven't fixed the anomaly in their property law structure, but it's otherwise, no, it hasn't had that kind of impact. And there are other good things about it.
Chana Schoenberger:
Okay, we only have time for one more question, and I'm calling moderator's privilege. So what is the coolest thing, the coolest news you've heard, finance and women racing that isn't from your own organization?
Marissa Weidner:
Well, I think a stat just came out that we have 10% of women now wrapping, leading the Fortune 500 companies. So that's a lot. Cause that's, that starts going up. I'm feeling good. That's great. So that's pretty exciting.
Chana Schoenberger:
That's great.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
I love the fact that the financial services industry, so banks, insurance companies, asset management are leaving 700 billion of money on the table, not serving the unserved, not financial inclusion, just serving men and women ready. That's a lot of money. I don't really get why that opportunity isn't being optimized.
Chana Schoenberger:
So if they gave women the services and products that they gave men exactly, they would make 700 billion in profit more every year.
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
Revenues, revenues, revenues every year. Every year.
Chana Schoenberger:
So why aren't they doing it?
Mary Ellen Iskenderian:
I don't know. That's why we need this to get really a lot of attention.
Chana Schoenberger:
Awesome. Well thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming in today and happy International Women's Day.
