Ringing the Bell for Gender Equality: Discussion with Women in ETFs on International Women's Day

NEW YORK - March 10, 2016 - PRLog -- Asset TV's Courtney Woodworth joined Jill Mavro and Sharon French from Women in ETFs at the New York Stock Exchange this past Tuesday to celebrate International Women's Day and talk about the advancement of women in the workforce and discuss what still needs to be done to help bridge the gender equality gap.   With over 1,500 members globally, Women in ETFs (WE) was organized 2 ½ years ago to bring women and men together in the ETF space to help foster an environment where women can leverage their collective skill and ambition.

For International Women's Day, WE coordinated efforts with the UN, the Sustainable Exchanges, IFC, and other organizations to ring the bell at the NYSE and 34 other exchanges globally.  As Jill Mavro describes the event, "It's really a testament to ETFs, the ecosystem, and the industry overall being so entrepreneurial...what an amazing visible and monumental show of commitment to gender diversity."

International Women's Day started over 100 years ago, when 15,000 women marched through New York to campaign for gender equality.  Tuesday's global event is testament to the enduring legacy of the movement, and a showcase to the progress that has been made thus far.  But while women have come a long way since the early 1900's, especially in the business-world, Sharon French highlights the fact that there is still a long way to go.

As this year's theme is focused on women in investing, with gender parity being a central focus, Sharon explains how one of WE's important tasks include reaching out to universities to try to educate and inspire more women to pursue a career path in financial services.   Jill also points out that with half the workforce being women, and with 40% of those women being the primary or sole provider for their families, only 5% are in CEO positions.  So figuring out why that gap exists and how to close it has become an important part of the organization's mission.

As women tend to be less funded than men when going into retirement (despite women tending to live longer than men) it has become more important than ever for women to get involved in finance.   With awareness and education being crucial first steps, one of the initiatives of the WE organization is to help connect women with people in the marketplace, ideally other women.  As Sharon states, "Many financial advisors who are women can empathize with some of the issues facing them."  As part of this initiative, Sharon performs a lot of outreach to the financial advisor community, "to help them understand what it's like to sit in the seat of a woman who's challenged to secure her own financial future."

While there are still many hurdles to overcome in the effort to bridge the gender equality gap within the financial field, groups like Women in ETFs and a willingness on the part of other financial institutions certainly help bring our society closer to that goal.

To watch this full interview and other videos from the International Women's Day event at the NYSE, tune into Asset TV:  http://bit.ly/1QKzENU


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