The Ladies Executive Club roundtable

The Ladies Executive Club, a network for senior women in the mortgage industry, could not be more relevant. Women are the key financial decision makers in a household, a government study found last year. They are also the main breadwinner in four million households, according to an LV= report.

Yet, as one Club member found when she analysed her firm’s sales data, some advisers fail to sell protection to women. “Some males clearly feel more comfortable dealing with males and not with females, particularly in the intermediary space,” she said.

A step towards solving this problem might be ensuring women are fully supported within the mortgage industry itself.

When polled, the majority of those gathered round the Club table said their success was down to their own hard work and ambition. Nevertheless, 83% said they had been made to feel uncomfortable in the workplace because of their gender. Three-fifths also reported being actively discriminated against.

For one woman, this meant accidentally being cc-d into an email between two male colleagues which discussed the fact she was of child-bearing age. Others mentioned the pressure to take on traditional female workplace roles.

Still, Club members stressed the importance of a good mentor or a supportive boss. One attendee explained: “You have to put yourself in the path of luck. Great bosses and mentors make luck for you.”

But while these managers and directors could spot a good boss when they saw one, opening the door to the boardroom proved more elusive.

Several Club members perceived the system of non-executive directorships as an “old boy’s club” where most job opportunities went unadvertised. At a time when only two building societies have female chief executives and only one of the top five mortgage lenders, this is hardly surprising.

Few in the Ladies Executive Club supported quotas for women on boards. Nevertheless, a number sensed firms were trying to make their boards more diverse on their own terms, ahead of any legislation. One Club member joked: “One of the women said she was worried about quotas because it might not mean people were promoted on merit. I said, ‘It’s better than sleeping your way up’. ”

A desire for a seat at the board aside, the Club members’ views on other equality issues were more varied. While quick to praise good bosses, they were less likely to see more money or cheaper childcare as useful in their careers.

One Club member reported she was in a minority among her peers for being a working mother but added: “I do feel there is envy, but it is them [the stay-at-home mothers] looking at me.” Another was more frank. “I think my children would need serious therapy if I had been at home,” she said.

As working women, the Club members were particularly interested in the requirement for advisers post-Mortgage Market Review to question applicants about their future. As one put it: “If you have a heavily pregnant couple in front of you and the answer to your question could you foresee anything that will change your circumstances is ‘oh no’, what do you say?”

Another responded: “If they say no and then six months later the answer is ‘yes’, that is their responsibility.”

And soon the question of childcare had triggered a lively debate on research into perceptions of discrimination, mortgage lenders and the role of advisers under a new regulatory regime. Because after all, this was – gender aside – a gathering of some of the top managers, directors and editors in the mortgage industry.