Action on International Women's Rights Day
Too few female students decide to head towards a career in the financial industry, resulting in an overrepresentation of men. As an example, in 2019, only 21.9% of management positions in major financial services companies were held by women. Therefore, our goal is to introduce greater social equity in access to higher education, especially concerning the selective branches of finance.
Our Objectives:
-
Fight against self-censorship
-
Broaden orientation perspectives of students
-
Educate high school students about the main problematics of the finance
Action Plan:
-
Intervene in high schools all over France by organizing sessions to inform, present, answer questions and do workshops, etc.
-
Meet up at EDHEC Nice Campus
On International Women’s Rights Day 2023, EDHEC WinFin hosted a dozen of 12th graders from Les Cordées de la Réussite to showcase the association, the EDHEC Campus, and highlight our goals, while playing quizzes to raise awareness on key topics in finance.
This was especially important as most of them would then soon perform their entrance interview for EDHEC programs in Nice.
Discussions were lively, ideas bouncing from each other – How to introduce oneself and stand out from other candidates? How to lead the interview (not the interviewer)? Or, how to work smarter not harder? – and what does LinkedIn even mean by the way??
On the school fees point, many highschoolers expressed their concerns, hence we educated them on grants, scholarships, and apprenticeships opportunities at EDHEC, and after graduation on wages in finance.
The majority of them had not yet chosen their further education field, after their French Baccalaureate – except for one who was sure on her evolving within the medical field.
And due to a lack of information, they – for most - had a skewed vision of the financial sector. On one side, they did hold significant prejudices against finance overall. But, on the other one, they did not exactly know how many different financial jobs do exist for instance. Without talking of the soon-to-be new ones which would be birthed from the rise of new technology, hence financial products, and services alongside.
Through a dynamic and positive dialogue, we encouraged and supported them to envision themselves making progress within their respective careers, no matter their chosen field. We hope to have successfully taught the highschoolers on the benefits of taking a chance, a common belief we – WinFin - hold with Ms Salima Ayad, the highschoolers’ economy teacher and regional Director IDF of Les Entretiens de l’Excellence.
We have been delighted to intervene and thank EDHEC Business School and Ms. Nicollet for their trust and engagement.
“Since 2006, Les Entretiens de l’Excellence has been fighting inequalities in access to guidance, by informing middle and high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Our goal is to inspire ambition in the talents of today and tomorrow.” - Les Entretiens de l'Excellence Website.