Closing the gender gap is right, and profitable, for payment companies

The need to empower women as leaders has reached the tipping point, it has become the central focus for payment corporations everywhere.

In addition to the need to empower individual professionals, we see entire companies looking for ways to empower the women that make up their payments workforce. Senior leaders from across the industry are investing in efforts that focus their leaders and cultures on how to use mentorship, networking opportunities and leadership training to support their employees.

These companies know what we know. When there are leadership roles for women in the payments industry, the individual, the entire company, its workforce and the industry thrive.

A 2018 McKinsey report, Deliver Through Diversity, found that increased gender diversity leads to both profitability and value creation. If women played an identical roles as men in the labor market, it could add $20 trillion (USD) to global GDP by 2025, according to the report.

Additionally, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research suggests that, if this current trend keeps up, women will not achieve “pay parity” in the U.S. until the year 2059 — another 42 years, and a World Economic Forum report estimates that it will take an additional 75 years — a total of 116 years — for the whole world to achieve gender pay equality.

Whether you are a CEO, a manager, or about to join the payments industry for the first time, the pillars of the leadership circle rely on strong networking, mentoring and professional development.

Mentoring is the cornerstone of leadership development. What we’ve learned is that formal or informal, mentoring programs should be designed around women leaders who want to give back as well as those looking to network and build relationships with others in their field.

Teaching women how to improve their networking skills as well as maintain their business networks is essential to their professional success. Our members tell us that women at every level have specific skills they look to hone, from negotiation and communication skills to personal and professional branding.

We invite everyone to support the power of diversity. And when we say "everyone," we mean both men and women, rising stars, innovators, executive advisers and presidents. We need a community of leadership champions at every level of the industry to press for progress.