The Women in Business Club and IE Careers Centre hosted a panel and networking event at Instituto de Empresa with five representatives of Lehman Brothers. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to discover a different perspective of Investment Banking. We talked to five women involved in the Capital Markets and the Investment Banking Divisions of Lehman Brothers in Madrid and London. Students, professors, alumni and IE staff could understand the anatomy of an investment bank which is divided in three areas: Capital Markets, Investment Banking and Investment Management Division. However, the bank structure is the same at Lehman, Goldman or JP Morgan. What is behind the curtain is what differentiates Lehman from the rest.

There are many clichés about the Financial Services Sector such as long working hours, tough and male dominated business environment or a place where women always found difficulties to fit in. Some of these are true however what we see now is that Investment Banks are looking for diversity in their workforce. We have already seen how companies in other industry sectors have implemented Diversity programs to ensure that top talent is not only attracted but retained. Some examples are IBM or Google.
However, Lehman Brothers as many other Investment Banks are finding difficult is to retain men/women at VP level who have already invested a number of years in investment banking, left their jobs and want to return to Financial Services. For this, the company has created the Encore Program which is already implemented in the US, Asia and Europe and has yielded 36 hires globally of experienced, professional individuals. This program allows flexible working hours or part-time jobs to make compatible work with personal life.
On top of this, the company wants to make sure that is not only a good place to work but that their culture is enriched by not letting go the talent including minorities (ethnic, women or disabled people). Lehman Brothers is one of the few companies with a CDO (Chief Diversity Officer) and she is in charge of making sure that there is a diverse workforce within Lehman.
Apart from this, it is important to mention that all employees at Lehman are stock holders, are assigned a mentor when they enter the company and the company always includes a woman as part of the recruitment team to achieve different opinions about its job candidates. This whole mix creates an attractive package for men and women who see how Lehman is clearly differentiating from the rest of companies in the Financial Sector. It is becoming a more diverse environment where women are playing more important roles than a few years ago and this was clearly demonstrated by the female panel we had today.
I would finally like to add a critical perspective to the Financial Sector. UBS has recently announced a Q4 loss of $12 billion due to US subprime mortgage crisis, so how are companies in the Financial Services sector going be able to sustain such recruitment investments? Will the company be able to afford losing the talent in which they have heavily invested? How many people will be fired in Financial Services if the US mortgage crisis goes on?