About us

Women in Finance Charter

2023 PROGRESS UPDATE

Columbia Threadneedle Investments signed the Women in Finance Charter in 2016, as part of our pledge to implement change and continuous improvement to drive greater gender balance across our EMEA* business.

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When we signed the Charter, we had 19% representation of women in senior management roles within our UK employee population. We are focused on increasing representation of women in senior management roles, as of September 2023, this was 20% and we are striving for a target of 35%.

This year our progress update includes the addition of more than 700 UK employees who joined the organisation following an acquisition in 2021**. As a result of this change, we have established new gender representation targets. We have also set an extended timeframe in recognition of the long term behavioural and cultural changes required within our industry to drive gender balance.

In 2019 we set gender representation targets in five categories to track our progress at various levels within our UK workforce over four years. In 2023, we achieved two of these targets: the percentage of women in the workforce (41%) and investment professionals (37%).

We have more work to do to achieve our ambitions and have taken several actions to accelerate progress, this includes the creation of new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) objectives for senior leaders. We have also established three new leadership programmes to advance the professional development and engagement of women in various roles and stages of their career. This includes our Women’s Leadership Academy, an initiative that focuses on developing high performing women and expanding their networks to help fulfil their professional potential; this year more than 80 women took part globally. We are also launching global inclusion training that leverages industry best practices to support our leaders to be inclusive sponsors and allies.
Our objective is to transform our workforce over time to better reflect our client base and the broader population by increasing the proportion of women, those from ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups, across the organisation.

Our DEI Action Plan is based on four pillars:

Checked document

Governance & Accountability

Embed accountability for DEI appropriately across our business.
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Recruitment

Continued focus on attracting a diverse talent pool through an inclusive hiring process.

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Development & Leadership

Evolve our internal and external training programmes to develop women and strengthen the inclusive leadership skills of all employees.
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Advocacy

Champion DEI issues, raising awareness internally and externally, both through our leadership team and corporate partnerships.

Columbia Threadneedle’s position relative to our targets in the five categories that we track, as at 30 September 2023, is as follows:
Columbia Threadneedle Investments % representation of women
30-Sep-23
30-Sep-22
30-Sep-21
30-Sep-20
2021-2023 target range
2024-2028 new targets
Board~
22%
22%
27%
36%
35-45%
35%
Executive Committee
20%
18%
38%
33%
35-50%
35%
Senior management
20%
16%
19%
19%
30-40%
35%
Investment professionals
37%
37%
34%
34%
30-50%
40%
Total employees
41%
41%
39%
39%
40-50%
45%

~ TAM UK International Holdings Limited and Columbia Threadneedle Investments UK International Holdings Limited

*Europe, Middle East and Africa

** As at Q4 2021, our expanded employee population totalled 1675 employees in EMEA, of which 1447 employees were based in the UK

Progress Updates

Women in Finance Charter 2022 Progress Update

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Women in Finance Charter 2021 Progress Update

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Women in Finance Charter 2020 Progress Update

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