Beirut , Lebanon, 16 June 2022 – Women bankers from across the Middle East will play a leading role in the Global Council for Women, a new body that aims to redress the gender imbalance at all levels of financial industry management.
The Council believes that professional women should hold at least half the executive positions in banking, Fintech and financial services but this is far from the case in the real world. “The cost to shareholders and other stakeholders is both incalculable and indefensible”, it says.
Designed by senior women bankers and financial industry executives, and facilitated by Lafferty Group, London the council will enable professional women to capitalise on their vast potential by sharing knowledge, expertise and experience through confidential council meetings, international conferences, special interest groups, newsletters, training and management development programmes.
Launching the new Council in Beirut today, Hanaa El HILALY, the prominent Egyptian banker said: “The Global Council for Women reiterates the vital role that women bankers play in economic development. It will be an excellent platform for sharing best practices and know-how, both regionally and globally. Not least of the benefits is the fact that it will also help to empower and inspire women leaders in the financial industry”.
Mrs HILALY is executive director of Al Kheir Microfinance Company and Executive Advisor to the Chairman, Egyptian Arab Land Bank. She is also a member of the United Nations Economic and Social Council High-Level “Team of Independent Advisers” on 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Expert in SMEs, Banking, International Relations and Sustainable Development.
Membership of the Council may be either individual or corporate and is available to banks, fintechs, cards and payments companies and other providers of financial services.
Individual members will participate in two conferences each year while executive membership is available to C-Level executives who wish to play an additional and more extensive role by participating in confidential council meetings, special interest groups, and training and executive development programmes.
Lafferty Group provides research, Councils and education to the banking, Fintech and financial services industry worldwide.
For further information, contact Alia Saboury, Ambassador, Global Council for Women – [email protected]
Lafferty Group
Lafferty Group has its roots in the early 1980s, when its CEO Michael Lafferty launched a newsletter to inform and educate banks about global developments in what was then an emerging field. Little was published about retail banking but Lafferty Group filled this knowledge gap with its newsletters, management reports, research services, conferences, and workshops.
In the mid-1990s Lafferty Group launched its Councils where senior bankers came together to share best practices in confidential sessions hosted around the world.
With the arrival of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007- 08, improper practices were exposed, sometimes extended to retail banking. Overlapping the GFC, came the emergence of Fintech, heralding a much-needed global wave of innovation and competition, not least in financial services for consumers and SMEs.
Lafferty Group applied for Institute status with the Registrar of Companies in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform of the UK, and was granted permission to operate in the name of the Retail Banking Institut in September 2020.