Target Group has become the latest financial service firm to sign up to the Women in Finance Charter, the Treasury initiative designed to build a more balanced and fair financial services industry.

The charter sets out three principles to improve gender balance across all levels of financial services – committing firms to support the progress of women into senior roles, recognise each firm should set its own targets and implement the right strategy for the organisation, and publicly report on progress to support the transparency and accountability needed to drive change.

As a signatory of the Charter, Target has pledged to promote gender diversity by:

• Appointing Rhiannon Williams, group HR director, as the member of the senior executive team responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion
• Setting internal targets for gender diversity in senior management
• Publishing progress annually against these targets in reports on the Target website
• Having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity

Target has been an active supporter of the Chwarae Teg programmes to help ensure women in Wales can enter the workplace, develop their skills and build rewarding careers.

Since the Charter launched, 162 financial services firms have signed up, with Target becoming one of 26 new signatories. Target will publish its targets and data on its website by February 2019.

Ian Larkin (pictured), CEO at Target Group, said: “It is vital that we promote and encourage a diverse environment here at Target as that is ultimately what will allow us to progress and make better business decisions. There are multiple studies out there that extol the benefits of diverse workforces, and we, as an industry, need to do more to encourage this.

“We have been very active in programmes that promote women in the workplace, and have seen the positive impact these create. As such, the Women in Finance Charter feels like a natural step for us and is a great opportunity to help champion the positive difference diversity makes.”