FWI Releases New WATT Study Results

(Financial Women International)

CONTACT: Ann Kvaal, Financial Women International
651-487-7632 or ann@fwi.org

FINANCIAL WOMEN INTERNATIONAL FINDS PROGRESS PROMISING
Women hold 27 percent of top jobs at 50 largest community banks

Roseville, Minn. – Women hold more than one-fourth of senior management positions at the nation’s 50 largest community banks, according to the latest Financial Women International (FWI) Women at the Top™ study.

FWI found a total of 442 senior-level positions within the 48 banks that responded to the association’s survey. Women held 121 of those jobs, or 27 percent of the total, as follows:

• One bank had a female chief executive officer;
• One had a female chief financial officer;
• Five women were president or division president;
• 25 women served as executive vice president; and
• 89 women held the title of senior vice president.

“We’re encouraged by the fact that women have a stronger foothold in senior banking positions today than in the past,” said FWI President Regina Barr, CEO of Red Ladder, Inc. in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. “We believe that women will continue to move into top positions as more seasoned managers retire from our industry in the coming years.”

Barr pointed out that at least 183 women hold the title of vice president or assistant vice president at the 50 largest community banks, indicating that even more women are poised to move up. The study’s organizers requested, but did not require, information on those positions from participating banks.

Finance students at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, led by FWI member and finance instructor Terrilyn Morgan, collected study data and compiled the results this summer.

FWI first developed the Women at the Top™ study in 1999, updating the study nearly every year since then. This year marks the first time the study has focused solely on the nation’s largest 50 community banks, defined as commercial banking institutions with less than $1 billion in assets and based on Dec. 31, 2007, bank data. The previous Women at the Top™ study results, based on 2006 data from the nation’s 100 largest commercial banks, found that women held 16.1 percent of senior-level positions at nationally chartered banks and 13.5 percent of the top jobs at state-chartered institutions.

“Our progress is promising, but we would like to see even more women fulfill their potential,” said FWI Foundation Research Chair Shirley Lyles of Birmingham, Alabama. Nineteen percent of the 48 banks that responded had no female executives, FWI found.

According to a separate study by FWI, titled The Leadership Gap, 60 percent of senior bank managers said their banks will need to cultivate a wider talent pool from which to draw leaders, including women and minorities. To move into higher positions, women must focus on building experience in roles that have profit-and-loss responsibilities. The core competencies today’s bank leaders will seek in their successors include communication, problem solving, personal integrity, vision, planning and goal setting.

Since releasing those results in 2007, FWI has developed programs including the Professional Fitness™ series and the See Jane Lead workshop, designed to help women develop those specific leadership abilities.

About FWI: Financial Women International is dedicated to developing leaders, accelerating careers, and generating results for professionals in the financial services industry. Membership is comprised of financial executives across North America. For more information, visit http://www.fwi.org/ or call 1-866-236-2007.

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Women at the Top™ is a registered trademark of Financial Women International.