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Women in finance roundtable held to inspire change for International Women’s Day

ACCA Czech Republic (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) held a roundtable in support of International Women’s Day 2014. Exploring how a financial qualification or background influences the career paths of women in a dynamic business landscape, has formed the debate at the roundtable.

In the past ACCA has produced a number of reports on the broad issue of diversity, and specifically about female representation on boards. In 2011 the International Women’s Day celebrated its 100^th anniversary and ACCA has produced a local Czech career survey featuring women’s positions. The roundtable discussion benefited from all these reports and has featured the youngest women finance career survey presented by Dita Chrastilová of KCÚ (Chamber of Certified Accountants) and Schulmeister Finance Professional Search.

The panel included speeches by Lenka Mrázová (LMentio) and Erika Ferenčáková (Henkel), who together with the audience co-created a unique opportunity to meet and discuss issues concerning and attracting women in finance positions.

Katka Benesova, head of ACCA Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, said: “Our extensive work into diversity issues shows that it widens the talent pool. The more disjointed things become, the harder it is to get fresh thinking on matters that affect the finance world. Innovation is key to changing things for the better.”

ACCA diversity reports include:

• Women in finance: a springboard to corporate board positions? is an ACCA and Economic and Social Research Council-commissioned research project by the Cranfield School of Management. It explored whether have a financial background or qualification affects the likelihood that senior women will obtain a FTSE 100 board directorship. Much has been written before about the barriers to women’s progression to the highest echelons of the corporate world. This study uniquely focused on the facilitative aspects of financial knowledge and expertise.

• In Building a better business through finance diversity, the report looks at insights from leading experts on why diversity in the finance function is important. Strategic issues driving the need for greater diversity is considered, and provides a much broader definition for diversity in the workplace. The report also considers how leading functions can start to build greater diversity across the finance function, and offers a 5-step guide to making diversity work for business.

• Paving the way to opportunities: women in leadership across the Commonwealth is about six solutions to encourage more women into senior business positions. The report examines what opportunities exist for women across the Commonwealth, how they are able to navigate to positions of power, and how this can be further supported by governments and businesses alike.