For years, conversations about women in financial services have focused on what is missing. More women in lending. More women in leadership. Those conversations were necessary.
But increasingly there is a need to recognise something equally important.
How much has already changed.
Across the mortgage industry, senior leadership teams increasingly contain women with significant commercial responsibility.
There is still work to do, obviously. Women remain underrepresented in C-suite teams across the mortgage and specialist lending sector, particularly at CEO and CFO level (Victoria Hyde, Allison Buckley and Nicola Firth all being notable exceptions).
But if we judge progress only by who occupies the very top seats, we miss the bigger story. I think we've reached an inflection point.
Today's CEOs and MDs generally built their careers 15 or 20 years ago, when the industry looked very different. Tomorrow's appointments will come from today's senior leadership teams. That pipeline of talent is considerably stronger now. While the industry still needs to ensure that pipeline translates into more women reaching the very top roles, the foundations are there.
The challenge now is ensuring talented women receive the same access to commercial responsibility, visibility and sponsorship that typically precedes executive appointments.
That’s happening at TAB. Women occupy senior positions across the business and contribute directly to lending strategy, customer experience and operational performance as we look to offer commercial mortgages at bridging speed. Fran Kindrat leads the underwriting function while Kelly Ifrah runs HR and Charlene Nayler heads up the marketing team. Two of our four senior BDMs are women – Sophie Meller and Charlotte Parker. Imogen Paradise is our head of finance.
I am proud to be part of a leadership team that’s bringing momentum to lending. I am not here to satisfy a target. All of these women are on board because they are capable professionals who bring expertise, judgement and commercial value to the business.
This is one of the strengths of commercial mortgage lending and bridging finance. Specialist lending has often rewarded expertise, judgement and commercial performance above rigid career paths. Progress can be quicker, responsibilities broader and opportunities more accessible for people prepared to take them.
Progress should also be measured in outcomes. Representation matters but so do rewards. Closing the gender pay gap is about more than equal pay for equal work. It reflects whether women are progressing into the senior, higher-paid commercial roles where organisations make their biggest decisions. As more women move into those positions, the gap should continue to narrow. It needs to – it's still wider than average in financial services. The industry mustn't become complacent.
Recruitment, mentoring, flexible working and career development remain important. I am a huge fan of the work done by Barcadia Media and the Women's Recognition Awards. Businesses still need to ask whether promotion processes genuinely reward talent and whether capable people are receiving the opportunities they deserve.
Equally, we should recognise progress. Sometimes the public conversation gives the impression that women remain largely absent from senior leadership. That does not reflect what many of us experience every day. The FTSE Women Leaders Review showed three-quarters of companies have met or exceeded the 40% board benchmark, reflecting the sustained progress. The most recent HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter Annual Review reports that women hold 37% of senior management positions across Charter signatories - a small rise on 2024.
Closer to home, look at Stephanie Charman at AMI; Liz Syms, chair of the Society of Mortgage Professionals; Jane Benjamin, mortgage director at Connect for Intermediaries; Christine Newell at FIBA; Nikki Haworth at Connect for Intermediaries; or Amanda Wilson at The Right Mortgage and Protection Network. Look at Louisa Sedgwick, Wendy Winter, Esther Dijkstra, Roz Cawood and Jo Carrasco, the business partnership director at Stonebridge.
The women helping shape strategy, oversee lending decisions, manage risk, lead teams and run major operational functions are already here. Their influence is substantial, even if not every one of them currently carries a C-suite title.
That matters because organisations are not transformed by a single appointment. They change when talented people throughout the business are trusted to make decisions, build teams and develop the next generation. The challenge has been to create enough opportunities throughout organisations that leadership becomes something women naturally progress into rather than something they occasionally break through into.
Most executives do not arrive in the C-suite overnight. They spend years building experience, managing larger teams, taking more responsibility and demonstrating consistent commercial judgement.
As those leaders accumulate more experience, and as businesses continue to create fair routes into senior decision-making roles, the appointments at the very top follow naturally.
That process is already happening. And that is why I am optimistic.
Not because the work is complete. But because the industry has built a far stronger pipeline of female leaders than existed previously. The next stage is turning that pipeline into sustained representation at the highest levels of leadership.
Future generations entering the mortgage industry will see something that simply wasn't there 20 years ago: women leading functions across almost every discipline of the business.
The industry's task now is not to force outcomes. It is to continue identifying talented people, giving them meaningful responsibility and ensuring merit is genuinely recognised.
If we keep doing that, greater representation in the C-suite will not require a revolution.
It will simply be the next chapter in a story that is already well under way.
