To better serve women in business banks need to take steps in the three key areas of institutional culture, communications and service design and delivery.Here’s how.Step 1.  Build a positive institutional culture around women in businessBanks that aim to effectively serve women in business need to build awareness and understanding of the opportunity throughout their institution. A good place to start is to evaluate the bank’s own culture with respect to how it values and supports women by taking a bird’s eye view and applying a ‘gender-lens’ to determine:

–  the extent to which women, in particular, can thrive within the institution;–  the effectiveness of recruitment and employment practices to employ, retain and develop  women;–  how far the institution effectively promotes and supports flexible working practices;–  whether women are sufficiently involved in institutional decision-making to allow for real diversity of approach;– the extent to which front-line staff, managers and senior executives understand the opportunity working with women in business presents for the bank.

Undertaking such a review will lead to a clear set of actions to provide a starting point for building a positive culture around women in business throughout the bank. The culture change can then be accelerated by appointing and training a network of male and female women’s business ‘ambassadors’ or champions who, on behalf of the bank, can continue to provide feedback on institutional culture, external communications and service delivery from a gender perspective.