Charlotte Alliot, Group Head of Institutional Derivatives at Euronext, and winner of Excellence in Trading (Derivatives) 2023 shares her insights with Best Execution.
Charlotte Alliot, Group Head of Institutional Derivatives at Euronext, and winner of Excellence in Trading (Derivatives) 2023 shares her insights with Best Execution.How are you seeing diversity impact the industry?
Finance has always been a fast-evolving sector, but now more than ever, this industry needs workforce diversity to generate fresh ideas and perspectives.
It is very positive that today, diversity and inclusion are at the core of financial markets’ hiring strategies, and there is a growing number of women working in the sector. The main reason is that inclusion in finance is more than a politically- correct nicety. Adding women to the workplace brings different skills and perspectives on such issues as collaboration, innovation and risk management, all of which contribute positively to corporate growth.
I am also confident that a diverse workforce is a creativity enabler. Our industry is global, it faces major regulatory changes on a frequent basis and is evolving in a complex macro-economic environment. All of these factors make it crucial to onboard a wide variety of profiles and to ensure inclusive workplace cultures.
What still needs to change for the better?
It is true that there are more and more women in the financial industry, but many of these women are still present in support functions, such as human resources, legal and regulation, marketing or client relationship management. It is key that our companies onboard more women in fields like trading, product structuring or quantitative research.
The challenge is also to make women believe that they belong in these more technical careers and feel confident they can make their way up over the years.
In these latter functions, it is still a reality that women hold fewer roles, especially in leadership positions. Hiring more women is one thing, empowering them in management positions is another, and in my opinion, there is still a lot of room for improvement in this field.
We have a duty to lead by example and offer perspectives to young female employees. Crucially, they should not feel that by choosing this career path they will be facing a glass ceiling at one point in their career. However, I am obviously strongly against promoting women only to tick a box; we all need to prove ourselves and be rewarded for our hard work, but the good thing is that talent has no gender!
What does this award mean for you?
This award definitely means the world to me. I started my career more than 15 years ago on a trading floor where women were scarce. I always felt women had to work harder to prove their abilities, and that to be credible I needed to make more effort and be more committed than anyone else. When I look back, I realise how much pressure I put on myself.
However, I have succeeded partly thanks to the men surrounding me, who empowered me, who positively helped and encouraged me, and who cared enough to give me feedback when it was needed. Whether they are managers, colleagues, or clients, I owe my career in part to men. Gender equality and inclusivity is something we build together.
What would you like to do, to support positive change in the industry?
There is no magic recipe; change is progressive, but thanks to the combination of a whole set of concrete initiatives, and adoption of global principles, it is for sure the direction of travel. In 2023 Euronext signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles. These principles offer guidance to businesses on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, and recognise that companies have a responsibility for gender equality and women’s empowerment. By signing these principles, which result from a collaboration between the UN Global Compact and UN Women, we are committing to the corporate delivery on gender equality dimensions of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The culture of diversity and inclusion must cascade down from the top to infiltrate all teams within a company. We need to acknowledge our responsibilities and to take part actively in
this process. Euronext has prioritised diversity and inclusion, nurturing a culture that thrives on different perspectives and experiences. There are numerous tools which are already implemented like the introduction of diversity and inclusion training across businesses, experience-sharing between employees, and mentorship programmes. But the key is to embrace all this and look at recruitment or promotion with open eyes, as we need to recognise some unconscious bias and the halo effect.
To share a concrete example, early this year, at Euronext we will launch an industry networking event dedicated to Women in Trading. Working at an exchange helps to be at the core of the financial community, so it was natural for us to launch this initiative and promote the creation of a strong network where we can share, learn, and, at the same time, be an example to the industry. This event will be organised jointly with Equileap, which is a data provider for diversity & inclusion with which Euronext has developed a range of gender equality equity indices.
This will be an opportunity to reflect on what management means for women. Exchanging views with female clients, I indeed realised that women in the trading and asset management industry feel the need to gather and share experiences, and at Euronext we are glad to embrace this movement and create links between people.
At what point would we not need to have a Women in Finance Awards?
Awards ceremonies are very special; they translate how the financial industry is driven towards success and innovation. We evolve in a complex but fascinating sector where great achievements need to be celebrated.
The Women in Finance Awards not only convey a lot of positive energy, they also celebrate the rise of women. These awards help to show to the wider community that women can seize opportunities and build strong careers while being recognised as leaders by the industry. However, I guess we all dream of the day where women’s success will not need to be celebrated as such, and where success could be recognised equally, with no gender consideration.
