IR Magazine has announced the date of its Women in IR networking evening in Toronto. The free, invitation-only event, in association with Edelman, is set to take place on the evening of Tuesday, October 3, 2017.
The event is part of a new global series aimed at improving the role of women in IR, featuring prominent female speakers from IR and beyond, as well as panel debates designed to foster the advancement of women in IR. Further locations and dates will soon be released but the event on October 3 takes place the day before the IR Magazine Think Tank – Canada 2017, also held in Toronto.
While the events will go beyond simple career progression, IR Magazine research shows that despite starting from an almost equal footing in investor relations, only around a third of top IR jobs go to women, while male counterparts are also more likely to be better compensated.
Further research shows this trend continues across the largest companies in Canada, the US, the UK and Germany. Looking at the S&P TSX 60, for example, 30 percent of head of IR positions are held by women. This is the same figure seen across top IR roles in the FTSE 100, while just one fifth of top jobs go to women in the S&P 100. On the DAX, women lead the IR team at just four of Germany’s 30 largest firms*.
That isn’t to say that many firms aren’t doing great things to promote diversity, however, both in IR and across their company as a whole. Speaking to IR Magazine for its summer 2017 cover story Glassbreakers, Marilyn Mora, head of global IR at Cisco, and Sharon Rolston, head of IR at Diageo, cited some of the many schemes their companies have in place, as well as the benefits of networking, mentoring or simply making sure your career aspirations are known.
Click here for more information on our Toronto networking evening or to request an invitation.
*Stock exchange research carried out in February 2017
