Pressing for progress on International Women’s Day

BNP Paribas celebrated IWD 2018 with a series of engaging events across The Americas, EMEA and APAC, including a commitment to the UN HeforShe partnership.

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BNP Paribas celebrated International Women’s day 2018 with a series of engaging events across The Americas, EMEA and APAC, including a commitment to the UN HeforShe partnership.

On 8th March BNP Paribas CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafé became a Thematic Champion supporting the HeForShe UN initiative, aimed at encouraging leaders in the public and private sector to promote and take concrete steps to foster gender equality. When announcing the partnership, Mr Bonnafé stated “To take the gender equality issue forward in a positive way, our world needs the commitment of men, as well as women”. The day also encompassed various events internationally including panel sessions with senior management and external speakers with the themes focussed on innovation, pushing for progress and female leadership.

Women leading innovation

BNP Paribas Americas emphasised the role of women in innovation, kicking off the week with a Women Leaders and Innovators of BNP Paribas Portrait Exhibition in New York, showcasing the women who are leading innovation projects and initiatives at the bank. Also during the afternoon keynote speaker Robin Chase – co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world- shared her insights about transformation through innovation. 

Pushing for progress

London focussed on the theme ‘press for progress’, hosting a series of panels and sessions about how to accelerate gender equality. This included inviting Natalie Reynolds, the Founder and CEO of advantageSPRING and author of ‘We Have a Deal: How to negotiate with intelligence, flexibility and power’ to lead an interactive session on effective negotiating skills, providing tools and tips to empower employees. In addition Charlene Laidley- founder of the Futureproof foundation which seeks to connect women with UK business experts to push for better gender balance in organisations- discussed the power of personal branding and the mind-set required to push for progress. Both men and women from BNP Paribas senior management teams also led a panel about breaking the glass ceiling, and the strategic business importance of gender equality. This was followed by a standing room only networking session where employees and management conversed about experiences and shared insights on mentoring, leadership and attitude shifts.

Encouraging female leadership

Promoting female leadership was the consistent theme in APAC, and events were held across the region including in Hong Kong and South Korea. In Hong Kong Senior Global Markets executive Polly Leung who is also the co-chair of Women in ETFs, gave an insightful talk about why diversity makes business sense at a ‘Ring the bell’ international women’s day event organised by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Women in ETFs. The leadership theme continued in South Korea where the BNP Paribas MixCity Korea network hosted a networking dinner about fostering female leadership, bringing together both male and female executives within BNP Paribas. 

Hong Kong Stock Exchange International Women’s day event featuring BNP Paribas senior executives




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