From pioneering code to inclusive leadership: celebrating Ada Lovelace and women in fintech – Spencer

Lovelace, the daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron, has been widely described as the world’s first computer programmer. 

Councillors approved a proposal for a 2.5m (8ft 2in) bronze statue of her to be placed on a plinth outside the Hinckley campus of the North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College.   

Not before time; she died in 1852. 

Lovelace was a visionary – the godmother of modern computing (and, therefore, fintech).  She worked alongside Charles Babbage on his “analytical engine”.   

She is one of the most important people, past or present, to have ever lived in the United Kingdom. She had a prodigious ability to comprehend mathematical theory, and it is hoped that having the statue outside the college will inspire girls and young women to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. 

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As a fintech, Target Group understands the value of visibility, inclusion, and representation, too. 

That’s why we signed up to the Women in Finance Charter in 2018. 

The need to track progress 

The charter is interesting.

In 2015, the government asked Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, former chief executive of Virgin Money, to lead a review into the representation of women in senior managerial roles in financial services, focusing on the talent pipeline at the executive population below board level. 

The review, Empowering Productivity: Harnessing the talents of women in financial services, was published in March 2016. It found that in 2015, women made up only 14% of executive committees in the financial services sector.  

In response to the recommendations in that review, HM Treasury launched the Women in Finance Charter. 

There are now over 400 firms, covering 1.3 million employees, voluntarily signed up to the commitments of the charter – from global banks to credit unions, the largest insurance companies to the smallest fintech start-ups – with headquarters in the UK, USA, Europe and Asia. 

We have just renewed our commitment to the charter and have pledged to achieve a 50/50 gender balance across our entire business, including our senior leadership cohort. This target reflects our dedication to ensuring equal representation, opportunity, and inclusion for all. 

In 2022, female representation stood at 30% within our senior management and 12.5% on our executive committee (ExCo). Since then, we’ve made significant progress, and we are pleased to announce that today, 41% of our senior management and 38% of our ExCo team are now women.   

These milestones mark meaningful steps toward a more balanced and inclusive leadership. 

Doing more than record keeping 

Of course, it’s not just about visibility and quotas.  We continue to champion and empower our female colleagues through a range of impactful initiatives, including mentoring programmes, succession planning, development programmes, networking and our Women in Target events in particular, as well as activities led by our diversity, equity and inclusion forum.   

Hopefully, these efforts reflect our unwavering commitment to building a workplace where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive. 

It’s paying off. As well as improving representation, our efforts have led to a significant reduction in our gender pay gap, too. 

It seems like a good time to shout about our achievements, but also to reflect on the distance we need to travel to achieve our goals, given we have just enjoyed National Inclusion Week.   

We celebrated with leadership workshops on “How to Be an Inclusive Leader” and “How to Lead Inclusive Meetings”. We hosted a talk from a guest speaker, Dr Jaime Hoerricks, who is a trustee for Fostered Futures, supporting care-experienced individuals, as well as being the chair of the Neurodiversity Network at Principality Building Society. 

Looking ahead, we remain focused on our goal: achieving 50% female representation across senior leadership and closing the gender pay gap entirely by 2030. This ambition is central to our vision of a fairer, more inclusive future for all.   

Because when everyone is included, everyone wins. 

Just as Lovelace laid the groundwork for the digital age, Target Group is doing our bit to move fintech towards gender parity.   

We are looking towards a future where every visionary, regardless of gender, can compute their way to success – the difference being, we won’t take the better part of two centuries to get there.