Wall Street

Gillibrand: We’ll See A Female Bank CEO Before A Woman Is Elected President

Kirsten Gillibrand believes that a woman will become chief executive of a major bank before we have a female president.

Speaking at a women’s Wall Street mentoring event, according to Bloomberg, the U.S. Senator for New York lamented that there are currently too few women leading the nation’s top banks — only four out of the 30 executive officers of major banks are women. And as for the women working at large banks hoping to get promoted to the top spot– a small number to begin with– they’re mostly mid-level and less likely to be funneled through the pipeline to an executive position. Plus, we all know how women feel about their peers being able to promote them.

The funny thing is, having women leaders in your company can lead to better results for shareholders. Some studies show that companies who have at least three female board members outperform companies without any women by a whopping 46 percent.

According to Gillibrand, this discrepancy is due to the fact that women think and act differently than men:

“When women are at the table, they problem-solve differently, they see risk differently, they see success differently. They define a different set of parameters, which when heard alongside male voices, result in a better outcome.”

Diversity of thought is always a good thing (no one likes groupthink), and women definitely bring another perspective to the boardroom.

And yet, while statements like Gillibrand’s are all jolly and good, women still only account for a teeny 18 percent of executive officers in the finance and insurance industries.

However, despite this somewhat bleak picture, Gillibrand still has hopes for these female financiers — at least more than she does for women in politics. Because even though there are very few women in finance, women in politics are even more scarce, holding merely 17 percent of the seats in Congress.

But despite Gillibrand’s lack of faith in political women, we think she might be forgetting someone who could prove important in 2016 — Hillary!

[Bloomberg]

TAGS: Kirsten Gillibrand | wall street | women in politics | women on wall street

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