Women in Finance Charter

At BNP Paribas we have continued to progress on our journey to meet our Women in Finance Charter targets and make diversity and inclusion a strategic priority.

Diversity, including gender equality, is a business imperative. Driving change and challenging structural inequities that have existed over decades is not always easy or quick to fix but is something that BNP Paribas is strongly committed to. We recognise that moving the needle requires more than a commitment. It requires a strategic approach and a coordinated effort by everyone, that is supported by clear actions, resources, accountability, and data transparency. We continue to strive towards making our working environment more inclusive, ensuring people feel valued and are provided with the support that they need for their professional and personal development. This will ultimately lead to better business performance, and delivery for our clients.

–Emmanuelle Bury, BNP Paribas UK Country Head

When we signed up to the Charter in 2018, we had 23% female representation in senior management positions, a figure which has progressed to 27.6% this year, and we continue to strive to meet our 2025 target of 30%. Whilst we are making progress, as with previous years and aligned with our industry peers, we continue to see challenges in the current labour market that have impacted our ability to meet our targets. Attracting, retaining, and progressing senior women in many areas of wholesale financial services remains difficult, and low turnover in our senior management positions, while reflective of a positive culture at BNP Paribas, means that there are fewer available roles.

Despite these challenges at the mid to senior level, we are pleased to note that we have made real progress at entry level and at our most senior Executive Committee level with 45% female on our 2024 graduate programme, and 50% female on our London Branch Executive Committee.

Additionally, BNP Paribas reinforced its commitment to progress on gender equality at Group level, with the announcement of a global Group target of 42% women on the Group Executive Committee and in the top 100 group of senior managers (G100) by 2025. We are currently at 38% on our Group Executive Committee, and 37 women are among members of the G100 list.

We have appointed Emmanuelle Bury, UK Country Head, as the Accountable Executive. Emmanuelle is Chair of both the London Branch Executive Committee and UK CIB Culture Committee, which has been formed to drive the strategy for culture and DE&I in the London Branch.

Having a dedicated governance for such topics with all major business lines and functions represented, ensures that these issues are given adequate focus and attention at the most senior level and Emmanuelle has personally driven strong sponsorship from senior leaders, an increased focus on data / culture metrics and on initiatives relating to female retention and progression.

To further our focus in this area, in 2024 we have launched a refreshed DE&I strategy and related governance, which involves the creation of departmental strategy / action plans to drive progress in every department.

The action plan will focus on:

Prioritisation of activities related to hiring and promotion.
Reinforcing accountability within each department and at Executive level via a dedicated new senior management objective.
Strengthening oversight and reporting, by implementing the Diversity data strategy and ensuring each department is committed to monitoring progress on a more frequent basis to reach each target.

Our action plan on gender is supported by ongoing engagement and peer support through our gender parity and Parents & Carers employee networks, working closely with four other employee networks.

Some of our achievements this year are as follows:

Our development programme for mid-career women, RISE has now run successfully for six consecutive years: 195 female colleagues have attended the programme since it was introduced in 2019. The aim of this programme is to support female employees in strategically managing the next steps of their careers to further strengthen our pipeline of senior female talent.
Implemented targeted development programmes for women, with the introduction of department specific initiatives, such as ‘StrongHer’ in Operations, Women in IT and We Lead in APAC.
We now have a robust role-based job evaluation methodology to assign roles including for senior positions (VP and above).

We recognise that our employees have different individual life expectations, personal situations, and differing requirements from their roles. Our Smart Working (hybrid) working model which is a role-based framework continues to promote flexibility and agility as much as possible in our working model, which benefits employees and positively impacts work life balance.

In our recent 2024 pulse survey, 82% of women reported that their smart working arrangements suited them and strongly agreed that their managers were doing enough to support them.

The Employee Networks continue to grow, develop synergies, and strengthen their role as key players in the promotion of diversity and inclusion and continue to run programmes and initiatives aimed at supporting women at important points in their lives and careers.

Through our Menopause at Work Initiative, we have made access to private medical cover easier, we have set up staff support groups, introduced a specialist Menopause support app and have trained Menopause champions. BNP Paribas was nominated at the prestigious Menopause Friendly Employer Awards 2023 as a finalist in the Best Support Group Category.

We have bolstered our parental leave policies and support offerings including the introduction of co-parenting leave, as well as additional leave and financial support for fertility investigation and treatment. We continue to offer additional services under of Private Health benefits and wellbeing offerings, including sickness leave in case of pregnancy loss, advanced cervical cancer screening through an external provider, breast ultrasound for dense tissue in addition to mammogram and a dedicated breast cancer pathway under our private medical scheme. Our health screening also includes optional genetic testing for the BRCA gene and other genetic risks. There is also the continuation and further development of a New and Expectant Parents program.