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The Adviser, in partnership with AMP Bank, is thrilled to reveal the winners for this year’s Women in Finance Awards.
Hosted by Momentum Media, the Women in Finance Awards is a national awards program designed to shine a spotlight on the strength, diversity and innovation female leadership brings to professional and financial services in Australia.
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More than 1,100 people registered to watch this year’s Women in Finance Awards, which was held as a live broadcast event on Thursday evening (10 September) and emceed by Jane Caro.
Julie McKay, PwC partner and gender equality advocate and commentator (gender adviser to CDF and former ED of UN Women NC Australia), gave an inspiring and motivating speech on the inroads being made in gender equality, how COVID-19 is accelerating new ways of working, and the need for a gender quota.
“We need to do a lot in our organisations to address the ongoing structural barriers that exist for women. That’s about ensuring that our performance and reward processes are fair, that our recruitment process are fair, that we invest equally in onboarding growth and development, and that we’re transparent about that,” she said.
“Organisations that publicly report on the gender pay gap on their discretionary bonuses end up being the organisations that make the progress. So, encouraging your organisation to actually be bold and make some of those key decisions transparent will be game changing.
“Finally, we need to stop having coffees with each other. Ongoing mentoring coffee relationships aren’t getting us where we need to be. We need to open doors for each other. We need to share business with each other. We need to refer opportunities to each other. Each of us needs a sponsor and should be sponsoring someone. And that might be something to think about tonight... who in this virtual room might be able to help you get your next opportunity, and who in this virtual room, can you help get their next opportunity?” she said.
The award winners from the mortgage industry
There were 29 winners on the night, including several representatives from the mortgage and finance broking industry.
In the hotly contested category of Mortgage and Finance Broker of the Year, Evelyn Clark from Accession Finance was named the winner of the award for 2020.
Natasha Janssens, broker and managing director of ACT financial firm Sova Financial, took home the award of Women's Community Program of the Year for her female literacy program, Women with Cents. This marked the fourth year in a row that Ms Janssens has won the award.
Joanna James, co-founder and general manager of mortgage lender Mortgage Ezy, took home the award of Principal of the Year on the night, while broker mentor Sue Hayter from Quality Financial Group was celebrated as the finance industry’s Mentor of the Year.
Connective Broker Services’ head of marketing, Andrea Roberts, was also recognised for her work promoting the broker offering, winning the Marketing Professional of the Year award.
Women working in finance from across the banking, broking, superannuation, accounting, financial planning and legal sectors were honoured across the remaining 25 categories, with Pascale Helyar-Moray from Super-Rewards (which helps boost super balances with cash rewards from shopping) named the winner of the overarching award, the Women in Finance Excellence Award.
Emma Ryan, deputy head of content at Momentum Media, commented: “The Women in Finance Awards looked a little bit different this year, but the goal of it remains the same – and that is to recognise the outstanding achievements of women in the professional and financial services industry right across Australia.”
She added that the awards program helps identify the “top talent that make up this important and diverse space, each of whom demonstrates a passion for their area of expertise and exudes strong professional performance and leadership capabilities”.
Ms Ryan said that while the year to date had involved many “challenges”, it was “incredibly inspiring” to see how the finalists had “successfully navigated through uncharted territory, providing a stellar example to [their] colleagues and peers”.
She concluded that the awards provided an occasion to not only celebrate the finalists and winners and “mark a job well done, but also as a chance to reconnect with friends and celebrate”, whether in person or virtually.
You can find the full winners list of the Women in Finance Awards 2020 here.
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