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Hi! My name is Bhravi Prajapati and I am a grade 10 student at J. Clarke Richardson Collegiate. In the past few months, I have been working on professional industry case studies while learning about the world of consulting with Illuminate College and their National Partners. Here is an article I wrote that captures the following insights about women in the financial industry: a shortage of women in leadership positions, fear rooted in a growth mindset, and qualities of successful women.
“If you see it, you can be it,” a quote to live by, especially for females paving their way to the leadership positions.
(Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels)
Today’s world has become all about equity, especially with a modern generation that believes in representing both genders fairly. There has been a tremendous increase in how women are being represented currently compared to 100 years ago. Back then, there was a lot of gender discrimination, with females not being allowed to do the same things as men were allowed to. As women fought for their rights over the years, they succeeded!
However, till this date, when you look at the work world, more often than not, there are males dominating several industries such as financial, trades, technology, etc. Looking deeper into the financial industry, we see that many of the higher leadership positions are filled by men. When Deloitte Center for Financial Services analyzed the growth of women in leadership roles, they predicted that the share of women in C-suite roles would reach 34.1% in 2030, while the share of women in senior leadership roles would reach 24.8%. For the C-suite roles, this is an increase from the approximate 27% in 2020, but not much of an increase that would equalize the representation of women with the representation of men. The Deloitte Insights “Within reach?” article mentioned a quote that really stood out to me, “If you see it, you can be it.” I feel like all women should live by that motto, it would bring a lot of ease to their mind when facing their hesitancy towards being a leader in major financial firms. It is “expected hesitancy” because often men are the ones filling the roles of a leadership position. No matter how strong and firm the woman's mindset is, fear always creeps in and takes over. In this case, one of the most ideal things that can gradually help ease that fear and anxiety is a female role model or even better, a female mentor. Someone who has been through the same and in the end has succeeded. As the quote says, “If you see it, you can be it,” seeing someone succeed at the same goal you have is possibly the most and best motivation you could have, in my opinion. That role model helps them build confidence and trust in themselves that they too can emerge triumphantly. They too can be in that C-suite position, they too can lead a team just as strongly as men can. There's no reason as to why women can't fill that position. In fact, there are some qualities that women possess that some men often have difficulties with such as multitasking, managing stress, and problem-solving. An example of a woman with such qualities is, Jaime Villalovos, an entrepreneur in the World Financial Group (a business platform for financial professionals), earning $1.2 million annually. She is a mother of 4, business mentor and success coach. While handling her business, on one hand, she also manages her family. What better multitasker than a woman that is a mother and entrepreneur! Examples of women like these are what drives us, other females, to do something impactful in our lives. We don’t want to stay in one place and remain dissatisfied with ourselves.
This is for all the women out there who aspire to flourish: if she did it, you can do it.
(Photo by energepic.com from Pexels)
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