All across the region eager young women filed into the branches and offices of regional bank CIBC FirstCaribbean to “fill” a variety of positions for the day, on Friday March 8.

The “job shadow” was one of the bank’s key activities across its 16-member regional footprint to mark International Women’s Day observed around the world on that date. It saw scores of female students from secondary and tertiary institutions joining meetings with senior managers and executives or going on the frontlines with retail staff as they got a feel for the various roles performed by the bank’s 3000 employees, seventy per cent of whom are women.

In Grenada a number of activities took place across the 7^th & 8^thof March 2019. These commenced with an interactive session for female and male employees of the bank with representatives from the Ministry of Social Development, Housing and Community Empowerment. Statistically based research was shared based upon the theme ‘Balance for Better’ and lively discussion of the gender parity issues faced in Grenada ensued. Male employees of the bank who also attended the session did not shy away from discussion which led to interesting discourse throughout.

The president of the Grenada Soroptimist Association, Ms Lorice Pascal affiliated with the Grenada National Organisation of Women (GNOW), moderated the session and was presented with a donation from the bank to be used towards a revolving seed fund under the ‘Empowering Women Through Horticulture for Sustainable Livelihoods’ programme.

March 8^th saw two local business students shadowing senior female staff at both St. George’s and Grand Anse offices and climaxed with the Women’s Village in the Botanical Gardens, the grounds of the country’s Ministerial Complex, where Grenada has a significant number of women in key decision making positions.

The bank joined in with a number of entities, at the village under the GNOW theme 2019 – Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change. This included multiple businesses spearheaded and run by female entrepreneurs. The event was well attended by both sexes.

At the bank’s regional headquarters in Barbados, Chief Executive Officer Colette Delaney and Managing Director for Barbados and the OECS, Donna Wellington, welcomed three new “assistants” for the day when she was joined by Zwena Knight, 16, from Queen’s College, Alyssa Payne, from The Lester Vaughan School and Danielle Worrell, from The St. Michael’s School.

The three, who have a firm grounding in accounting and business studies, shadowed Ms. Delaney for most of the morning sitting in on meetings with her and Chief Administrative Officer Neil Brennen and other senior members of the bank.

She noted that the students were engaged and “fully participated and had a good input” during one of her meetings. She said that the job shadow was intended to show the students that there was a whole lot more to banking that just the familiar retail functions.

The students also spent time in the marketing, legal, risk and corporate banking segments at head office and were later taken on a tour of the Sunset Crest Branch by the CEO and Michelle Whitelaw, Director of Retail Banking Channels. They were also treated to lunch in the bank’s boardroom where they were joined by a number of senior female leaders.

Danielle Worrell, who spoke on behalf of the trio said the day was a “very wonderful experience.”

Earlier in a message to staff to mark the day, Ms. Delaney, the first female CEO of the bank said while the bank was proud of the number of females serving at very high levels, there was still room for improvement especially at the senior executive level.

“I am reminded of this every time I chair a meeting of our executive committee and realise I am the only female around the table, although I do have some company in the senior executive team and the senior leadership team,” she said.

However, she added that she was “proud of the support system we have put in place to help our women develop and rise to whatever level of our organization they may aspire to”. In addition to the job shadow there were various activities to recognise and reward the contribution of women to business and the society as well as seminars and mentorship sessions and donations to women and girl’s charities.