Women in Finance Charter

2024 PROGRESS UPDATE

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

Women in Finance charter logo

As a charter signatory, we are focused on increasing the representation of UK women in senior management, as of June 2024 this was 15% with a target of 35% by end 2028.

Our objective is to increase the proportion of women in our workforce over the long term and those from ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups. Last year, we set new gender representation targets for 2028, following the addition of more than 700 UK employees who joined the organisation through an acquisition. These new targets recognise the long term behavioural and cultural changes required within our industry to drive gender balance.

While we have continued to increase the representation of women across our UK business overall to 43%, representation across other populations has declined over the last year. Whilst we recognise that progress is not always linear, we remain focused on initiatives to support women at different stages of their career, including:

Supporting and working with Girls are Investors (GAIN), a charity with a mission to improve gender diversity in investment management by developing a strong entry-level talent pipeline.

Embedding inclusive recruitment to ensure we consider the widest range of candidates for vacant positions, including a focus on balanced shortlists and drawing upon different perspectives to support candidate assessment.

Focusing on the retention and progression of our high-performing women through our Women’s Global Leadership Academy. This provides both individual and group learning to help participants fulfil their professional potential.

Continuing to evolve our Women’s Interest Network for our EMEA employees to build a strong internal community of women and allies. This group raises awareness of issues to help champion change and supports development.

Removing barriers and driving long-term change across our industry and firm will take time and strategic focus. While we have more work to do to achieve our ambition, we are taking action to foster progress.

In 2024, Columbia Threadneedle’s accountable executive for the charter became David Logan following his appointment as Head of EMEA.

Columbia Threadneedle’s 2024 position relative to our targets in the five categories that we track is:

% representation of women
30-Jun-23
30-Jun-24
Aspirational 2028 target
Board *
22%
20%
35%
Executive Committee **
20%
17%
35%
Senior management ***
20%
15%
35%
Investment professionals ***
37%
35%
40%
All employees
41%
43%
45%

*TAM UK International Holdings Limited and Columbia Threadneedle Investments UK International Holdings Limited Boards

**EMEA Business Management Committee

***UK employees