FEATURE: INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY

Anna Pinedo: “At this point, most banks have mentoring programs and formal diversity and inclusion programs—all of which are helpful.”

Isabelle Millat: “Women in ETFs; the Women in Finance Charter (UK); The London Women’s Forum (UK); Financi’elles (France); SG’s Global Markets Division is active on that front, too, with Women in Capital Markets, Women in Quant, and our Women in Markets Mentoring Programme.”

Diana van Maasdijk: “Mentoring tends to help individuals but turning things around in terms of diversity and inclusion often requires structural change within a corporation. Our experience is that mentoring can be a great support and help, but to really help diversity and inclusion, we should look to company leadership and pressure from investors and governments to set the targets that drive systemic and cultural change.”

Maryline Mertz: “Obviously, we have a women's network, and other firms will have similar initiatives. We have one for the division and one firm wide as well. One of the programmes I have personally benefited from is called the Women’s Career

Strategies Initiative (WCSI), which helps prepare talented female associates to take their next career step. You get to have speaking engagements, teaching courses, and you get to interact with senior leaders of the firm. Ultimately, what women probably are most shy about is networking. It's easier to network with other women than networking with other men and given we're not yet at critical mass you end up shying away from networking opportunities. And this type of programme helps to put women on the spot and forces them to learn how to network.”

Armelle Loeb: “We have made a lot of progress in the last decades, and you can see the difference across companies and functions. The different industries have realised that the real capital is the people, and this shift has been supported by government policies in many countries to promote male/ female equality and race diversity that reflects the composition of society. We are a transition generation, and I expect the next generation will be able to have a level playing field for men and women. Men will also have to adapt and change their attitudes towards work and family, as the gender gap closes.”

Advancing Women in Structured Products (Wisp)

Anna Pinedo is a partner in Mayer Brown’s New York office and co-leader of the Global Capital Markets practice. She concentrates her practice on securities and derivatives, representing issuers, investment banks/financial intermediaries and investors in financing transactions, including public offerings and private placements of equity and debt securities, structured notes and other hybrid and structured products.

Armelle Loeb is head of index EMEA sales, Qontigo where she is in charge of the promotion and distribution of innovative STOXX and DAX index solutions to institutional clients. Prior to joining Qontigo, she held different senior positions in the ETF industry with iShares, and then HSBC and Credit Suisse ETF, as head of sales. Armelle started at Lehman Brothers before joining Deutsche Bank in fixed income trading and then MSCI where she was sales responsible for the French speaking market.

Isabelle Millat is head of sustainability in Société Générale’s Global Markets division. Hers is a newly created position reporting to the head of financial engineering for Global Markets. Leveraging on the bank’s financial engineering prowess, Millat coordinates sustainable and responsible investment initiatives across asset classes, developing and extending the bank’s range of ESG investor solutions. Millat was previously chief operating officer for SG’s Cross Asset Structured Products business in New York.

Diana Van Maasdijk is founder and CEO of Equileap, an ESG data provider specialising in gender data. Diana worked previously as head of philanthropy at ABN AMRO Private Bank and as director of development at international women's fund Mama Cash. Equileap ranks public companies globally based on the organisation’s proprietary Gender Equality Scorecard. Its regular reports highlight the extent of gender equality within companies in specific regions and address various gender equality themes.

Maryline Mertz is global head of origination across equities and FICC for Goldman Sachs, where she spearheads the Global Markets Division's structuring efforts across various delivery mechanisms, including securitized derivatives products, structured OTCs with third party issuers, special purpose vehicles and fund vehicles. She is a champion for the firm’s Disability Network and serves as culture captain driving the Global Markets Division Leadership Forums.