Calling out for more female leaders

The 2022 SHE Conference kicks off on 17 March. This year it will be a mix of physical conferences in Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki, and live streams from 17 to 30 March. 

Why Nordea is partner to SHE Conference

The theme of SHE Conference this year is "Make it happen". Today only one in four CEOs in finance are women, and one in three managers are women.

"As a major asset manager we have great power to change. Today we use our position to make a difference and influence companies we invest in to increase the share of women at senior management and board level. But we can do more," says Snorre Storset, Branch Manager in Nordea Norway.

Heading slowly in the right direction

In 2019 Nordea launched the Global Gender Diversity Fund, a fund subject to strict criteria for reporting and gender balance at senior management and board level.

"If the fund had been launched in 2009, only 422 companies worldwide would qualify for the portfolio based on our equality criteria. In 2015 it would have been 1,442 companies. In 2020 it was 2,967 companies. We are heading in the right direction, but it’s a slow process," says Snorre Storset.

Better performance

A number of surveys show that a good gender balance leads to better innovation, brings out the best people, a better work culture and a better bottom line.

"I believe that companies recruiting from the entire population have an advantage. We need to change our patterns of behaviour, and we need to start with ourselves. We want more female managers both at Nordea and in the financial industry in general," says Snorre Storset.