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Ms. Siegel: Well, hello, everyone.
Hope you are all doing well.
You recovered from the snowstorm.
Least it's getting warmer except makes the snow
a little bit yuckier.
So thank you for trudging here today.
We are so happy to have you.
We're so honored to welcome you here for
Women's History Month in honor
of International Women's Day.
I'm Avra Siegel.
I'm the deputy director of
the White House Council on Women and Girls.
And I have the distinct honor for working for one
of the great leaders for women's rights here at
home and around the world,
and that is Valerie Jarrett.
She is the senior advisor to President Obama and the
chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls.
She is a relentless advocate for these issues.
I have learned so much from her, and I am
so honored to introduce her today.
So, Valerie.
(applause)
Ms. Jarrett: Well, good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome.
I gave Avra a hug because as I said to Lloyd
a little while ago, he couldn't figure out
whether to shake my hand or hug, and I said,
"In the White House, we are huggers."
(laughter)
So that's what we do.
And what better day to hug than our
International Women's Day.
And to launch Women's History Month and to look
around this room and see so many people here who
have worked with us closely over the five --
last five years -- I just want to on behalf of
the President, welcome you to the White House.
And let's just give yourselves like a big
round of applause to get us started!
(applause)
So as I think you all heard
the President say in this year's State of the Union,
2014 is going to be a year of action.
That's what we're committed to doing.
And we all know that when women succeed,
America succeeds.
And the same thing is true for women all
over the world.
And as I look around this audience and I see these
amazing, powerful, accomplished, successful
women, and a few good men -- brave men, let's say,
there is no end to what we can do
if we work together.
And we know that in order for us to have a globally
competitive marketplace, we cannot leave behind
half of our population.
And so we are so looking forward to having this
amazing panel discussion in a few minutes so that
we can talk about what it is that we're going
to actually do to improve the trajectory of our women
and girls as they try to compete
in this global marketplace.
I'd like to especially recognize the
members of our panel.
And I'll tell you, I am never -- I am always
amazed at how amazing Avra and our team here is at
the White House because we go from Tina and I sitting
around having an idea to everybody actually showing
up and being here in about two seconds flat.
And it doesn't happen because Tina or I decided
it should have happen, it's happened because
of Avra's hard work.
And so I think, Avra, you could --
(applause)
Round of applause two.
So our panel is really going to talk about how
the public sector, the private sector, and the
NGOs could all work together to break down
the barriers to women's economic empowerment
around the world.
And the panel is going to be moderated by our very
own Caroline Atkins, who's a White House deputy
assistant to the President and deputy national
security advisor for international economics.
Stand up so -- you're going to get a shout out, too.
(applause)
Caroline is one of our strongest voices
for women's economic empowerment here at the
White House and a terrific partner for with whom
we collaborate on a daily basis.
And she's pressing the President's agenda forward
on trade and our international engagements
around the G20.
And so we're just -- we're delighted to have you with us.
Second, we have Christine Lagarde,
managing director of the IMF.
Christine -- (applause) -- one of the world's
foremost champions for elevating the issues to
the top of the agenda.
They're important to women and girls and we're just
so excited about the research that IMF released
in their women's work and economy report.
So congratulations for that.
Inez Murray, the CEO of the Global Banking Alliance.
Inez.
(applause)
Inez has been a tireless pioneer and
advocate for the financial inclusion of women.
So we thank you for everything that you do.
And then, near and dear to our heart, Catherine --
not you yet.
(laughter)
Where's Catherine Russell?
You're coming up, Lloyd -- who is
a U.S. ambassador at large for global women's issues
and who leads our international women's
agenda with passion and vigor and travels all
over the world.
So those are the women on the panel.
And now, as I said, we always need to have
one brave man.
So Lloyd Blankfein -- please stand up -- the CEO
of Goldman Sachs -- (applause) -- who has a
longstanding commitment to women, which I'm going to
get to in a moment.
But I also wanted to announce what I hope you
have already heard, which is that he and Goldman are
deepening that commitment to women, entrepreneurs
around the world, by announcing a $50 million
investment as a part of a new initiative with the
World Bank and IFC, and the initiative is going
to raise 600 million in capital to help
100,000 women around the world, entrepreneurs in
developing countries, take a step forward to help
increase and grow their businesses.
So, Lloyd, I want to give you a real shout
out for that.
Thank you for that.
(applause)
And everybody who knows Lloyd knows that
behind or next to or even in front of every good man
is a strong woman.
So Dina hates it
when I do this.
But where's Dina Powell?
We have to give Dina a shout out because she
actually gets all the work done.
(applause)
Where are you?
Did she sneak away?
Oh, she's hiding.
She won't even stand up.
She never stands up when I call her.
Anyway, so thank you to the panel for coming.
We're just -- we're delighted
to have you here.
And so before we begin the panel discussion, I want
to introduce somebody to you who is extremely,
extremely special to me.
And I've had the privilege over my life of meeting
some pretty special women from all over the world.
But there is one who I will know I will never
forget, with whom I clicked instantly and who
I believe will be a lifelong friend.
And that's Ayo Megbope.
Stand up for a second.
Let me -- (applause) -- I want everybody to see you
when I talk about you.
Now Ayo and I met five years ago at the first
CGI 10,000 Women dinner that I attended.
And it was when the first class was coming to
closure, and Ayo was in the very first class.
And I will never forget, Dina sat us next to each
other at dinner.
And from the very first moment I saw this twinkle
in her eye, and she, over the course of the dinner,
began to describe to me her journey.
And the journey was one where, you know, most
people would say, "Oh, my gosh.
What a challenge.
You started on the fourth floor walk-up, in your
kitchen, this catering business."
And she told me these stories about how when she
would run out of money, she would just go to her
husband and ask for more money.
Never occurred to her to actually have a checking
account and save or borrow.
She just kept going to her husband.
Well, eventually there was enough of that.
And he's like, that's not the way we're going
to do business.
And fortunately, she found 10,000, and was selected
by the 10,000 Women.
And I will say to you, by the end of the dinner,
I said, "This is such an -- just a remarkable
entrepreneur that the sky is the limit."
And over the last five years since then, she's
moved out of that fourth-floor walk-up.
She now has started her own freestanding business.
She has catering business in addition to everything
else that she's doing.
But just a remarkable, tender, warm, good spirit
who had a great idea, and she had the gift
and the talent to develop that idea.
All she needed was a little help.
And there are people like you all over the world who
are just waiting for that little bit of help.
And so, really congratulations, again,
to Lloyd and the whole team at Goldman who've worked
so hard to make miracles happen, miracles that
should have happened.
All they just needed was that little bit
of an edge up.
And so it's really my privilege to introduce
to you a woman with humor, grace, talent, wit, charm,
an infectious smile, a twinkle in her eye, who
is setting, literally, the world on fire.
Please join me in welcoming Ayo.
(applause)
Ms. Megbope: Thank you, Valerie, for
your kind introduction.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Ayo, and I was part of the very first
class of 10,000 Women.
I will always remember the day I met Valerie
five years ago.
Valerie has been very supportive.
At every opportunity
you taught me to believe in myself
and push my limits.
You showed me that powerful women can pull
so many others up with them.
And so I just told you I started my MBA program
with the Manchester Business School.
(applause)
I started my kitchen business, No
Leftovers Nigeria Limited in 2007 with a seed
capital of $8.
I was working from my home, a fourth-floor
walk-up apartment.
My first customers were my family and friends.
Looking back now, I realize that sustaining
my business was the easy part.
The hard part has been sustaining and growing it.
Starting my business was the easy part.
The hard part has been sustaining and growing it.
Before I enrolled in 10,000 Women, I was
selling bean cakes every day, but I couldn't
account for all my hard work.
I realized that while I had cooking skills, I also
needed business and management
skills to succeed.
10,000 Women helped me organize my finances,
and I opened a bank account.
It gave me confidence in myself as a business
leader and introduced me to a new network of women
entrepreneurs to learn from.
I also learned how to delegate.
Even more importantly, I learned how to hire
and retain qualified staff.
I invest in my employees and their families too,
and so we all grow together.
Since participating in the 10,000 Women program,
I have moved into a dedicated facility
and opened a restaurant.
My revenue has increased 30-fold and I have hired
over 50 full-time and part-time employees.
My business keeps growing
as I find new opportunities.
Just a few days ago, I used my profits to
purchase a new delivery truck and hired
two new employees.
My business cannot keep up with current demand
because we don't have enough staff or even the
physical space to fill up any more orders.
Most people will say this is a good problem to have,
but the truth is, as a business owner, all I see
is missed opportunities.
I have tried to access a loan to expand
my catering facility.
But unfortunately the bank requirements are
too difficult to meet.
One bank asked me to put down 70 percent of the
capital, and another asked for land tied to less
collateral, which unfortunately
I do not have.
10,000 Women has brought me so much and has
taught me so much.
And I have new ideas for my business, including
moving into food processing and packaging.
With an investment capital there is absolutely
no limit to what I can accomplish.
Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.
(applause)
Ms. Siegel: Well, thank you so much, Ayo.
It's stories like yours and of other women like
you around the world that really inform what kinds
of policies and programs we all need to work hard
on to really help grow our economy and help support
women entrepreneurs around the world.
So thank you for that.
Now I want to introduce our formidable panel
to stage, and let's get this show started.
Ms. Atkins: Thank you very much.
A special thank-you, of course, to Ayo.
And may I just say, Valerie just asked me to
let you all know that this is being streamed live
over the IMF website.
So we hope that many people -- not just those
in this room -- are also able to enjoy it.
On the White House website, I beg your pardon
-- on the White House website.
The -- thanks Avra.
So I wanted to say that it's such
an exciting time now.
We heard this incredible story from Ayo, but we've
all heard stories through our working lives of
individuals who have done well and individuals
who've been helped.
I think what's exciting now is that this is a more
general mood in the country, in the world, of
understanding that it's not just about the social,
moral, ethical idea
of helping women or fairness.
There's also hard economic logic behind that.
And that's why we have -- and I wanted to ask --
first, I want to turn first to the panelist on
my left, Christine Lagarde, who of course
has, like many of us, been fighting for women and
women's empowerment over the years, but also
the head of perhaps the hardest headed
international organization and financial
organization, the International Monetary Fund.
So Christine, what can the IMF actually do to help
move government so that they understand
the importance of women in the economy?
Ms. Lagarde: Thank you, Caroline,
and good afternoon to all of you.
First of all, I think it started at home.
And I'd like to recognize in the audience some
of the women at the IMF who helped me carry the
women's cause a little bit further in that
organization, which is extremely talented but
highly dominated by I would say a male culture.
So you have to, in my view, start from your base
and decide that you're going to really take this
theme, this cause further.
What we did was, you know, put our analytical skills
to the service of women and why does it matter?
Why does it make economic sense?
Well, from a macroeconomic point of view, which
is our core business, what does it bring to actually
encourage women to the job market, to the workforce,
to the financing, which, as you said,
always is so needed.
So we published not so long ago a study that
is called Women, Growth, and the Economy.
And that study has been circulated around and has
the stamp of the IMF and is actually demonstrating
the fact that half of the women in the world are not
working, so they are underutilized.
And those women that work, well, you find many of
them either underpaid or not paid at all because
they belong to the informal society where you
can't track payment, which makes me say that
they are overexploited.
So they are both
underutilized and overexploited.
And yet when you actually demonstrate what they can
bring to the economy, you soon realize that they can
really increase the GDP of the countries that they
can work in, that they can develop the standard
of living for the entire population.
And we've made some, you know, sort of modeled
calculations because that's the way
the IMF works.
And it can really raise GDP from anywhere
by about 7 percent to about 27 percent.
India is the point in case where really GDP could
really increase significantly,
and the same is true for some of the Middle East countries.
So that's first thing we did.
You know, general study, focus on what the benefits
could be if women could access the job market
and the workplace.
Second thing we do is, you know, we go under the skin
of each and every economy that is a member
of the institution.
And when we do that, we also try to identify
on a country-by-country basis and the dialogue that
we have with policymakers, what women can bring, how
they can be helpful, how policies can be changed
in order to accommodate women's needs in order
to open it and in order to remove obstacles.
And there are plenty of them.
I'll be happy to mention a few.
And I would like to mention one example of
a country that has actually gone a long way already,
and that is Japan.
Japan, about a year and a half ago, we did
a specific study on the Japanese market.
And I took it to Japan.
I participated in the real launch of the study that
was done by members of staff of the IMF.
I took it to the finance minister.
I took it to Prime Minister Abe, and I was
only thrilled to see that Prime Minister Abe,
in addition to his three arrows, has now decided,
given the aging of the Japanese population, given
the problem that they have identifying talented
workforce, which is plenty because the women are
extremely well-trained and educated but, as I said,
underutilized, has now decided to open plenty
of new childcare centers and to make sure that women
in Japan could access the job market.
He's championing that cause.
The governor of the Central Bank of Japan,
who is very famous at the moment because he's
changed the monetary policy, goes around the
world saying that the labor market reform
is critical and that women must have access
to the job market.
I was attending the G20 that you're
familiar with, Caroline.
In addition to Japan, I was so pleased to see that
Korea has made it part of their program as well,
and will change some of the policies in order to open
the market to Korean women.
Now if that can be done in Japan and in Korea,
it can be done in many other places as well.
So we will just keep at it.
And just by way of conclusion, two or three
policies that can be changed to facilitate
access to women, that, you know, the policymakers can
look at: First of all, tax system.
When you have a tax system that is based on the
family unit, it's clearly a disadvantage to the
second bread earner.
Who is the second bread earner in most cases?
Women.
Second set of policies that have been
successfully implemented by, say, the Netherlands,
is, you know, labor market reforms that eliminate
obstacles and discrimination against
part-time employees.
Who is a part-time employee for part
of their life?
Women.
That's the second example of how things
can be changed.
There are plenty of others, but I'm sure that
you want other speakers to take the floor as well.
(laughter)
Ms. Atkins: Yes, and I wanted to
actually, since you mentioned the G20, to say
that we in the United States and encourage very
much by Valerie and her team, have put together
a proposal for the work plan of the G20 this year,
which I spoke about a little yesterday in a G20
session, which is to improve and increase
female labor force participation, and for
every government to think about plans that they can
have and specific policies, as Christine
mentioned, that can be put in place for that.
But I want to turn to Cathy, who, as Valerie
said, flies around to world, talks to a lot of
governments, and understands perhaps
as well as anybody what are some of the toughest
barriers to persuading governments to change.
Cathy.
Ms. Russell: Well, Caroline, I think
the interesting thing is almost wherever you go,
there are some barriers.
The question is just whether -- what they are
in different countries.
We've identified four that you see almost everywhere.
One is access to markets.
Second -- and that includes things like
permits, mobility, corruption.
And these affect women differently than they
affect men.
You know, corruption is a good example or let's say
permits, because corruption sort
of fits into that.
A lot of times, women in sort of every stage where
they try to get permits, they're just at a little
bit less of an advantage than men because they
don't really know how the system works.
They don't usually have the access to sort of
funds to pay off bribes, things like that.
So every stage along the way, they have problems.
Access to capital -- obviously that's a problem
that I think Lloyd can talk about because that's
something that we see all the time.
But that also includes things like
finance, land, technology.
And it's also -- there's a -- women are frequently
what we call time poor, which is in addition to
everything else they're trying to do -- they're
raising their children, they're taking care
of the family.
Women have skills gaps in many places.
You know, that can be tied to a lack of education.
And, again, it varies from country to country,
but it's something that we see consistently
place to place.
And finally, you know, we have an issue
with women's leadership.
And that can be kind of a lack of women's networks,
cultural barriers, childcares, as Christine
mentioned, a lack of role models.
And so in every country, you know, you see some
version of these in one or another.
And I think what we try to do on just on the policy
level is look for opportunities
to address these.
And we do these, as you mentioned, through
different -- 401 is a G20 through Apek,
through the Equal Futures Initiative
that the President launched here -- but
really look for opportunities where we can
share experiences and try to help countries do
better and try to find ways to help them kind of
overcome these barriers so that women have a little
bit better options moving into these markets.
Ms. Atkins: So, Lloyd, what's the business case?
You're -- I know that you have this very exciting,
new initiative launch today, but before getting
to that, I'd be interested to hear from you as a
businessman, hard-headed businessman --
Mr. Blankfein: Hard-headed.
(laughter)
Ms. Atkins: -- in a world to (laughs).
Hard-headed, soft-hearted, maybe.
But anyway, what is the business case?
Mr. Blankfein: First, listen.
Let me -- I would also like to add -- thank
everybody who's come, but I also want
to thank Valerie.
We wouldn't be in this place, Valerie, if you
hadn't been -- Valerie's
come to multiple graduations.
She's rolled up her sleeves.
She's coached people who've been
in this program.
So, again, I want to thank you very much for that.
(applause)
No, there are multiple business cases.
When we first started in, we were looking frankly
for white space: an empty space.
I mean, that's never a virtue except if you're
looking for one to fill, and you have the resources
to fill it, where we could invest a dollar and get
the highest return.
And when we looked around the world -- and don't
forget, there were a confluence of a number
of streams going for us.
We're in international businesses.
We have emerging market bias in our business
because that's where -- because our business
correlates with growth and we follow growth around
the world in the highest growth areas are doing it.
We like the women space also because we were
looking around and looking at our own metrics and our
own -- we have a lot of anxieties ourself about
these question about how to recruit.
But increasingly, recruiting is not the
problem -- how to retain women in our business.
And -- because they're terrific, but guess what?
They don't always stay.
And I look at the proportionality at every
stage, and it starts off at 50 percent, and it
goes, and by the time you get to the senior-most
people in the firm, it ebbs down to 20 percent,
like most other firms like ourselves.
And maybe we do a little bit better, but that's
not much better.
We looked at all those positions and looked at --
for the confluence of these ideas,
and you mentioned Japan.
We had our own Kathy Matsui about 10 years ago,
wrote a piece -- she's our research person in Japan
-- wrote a piece called "Womenomics."
And that was cited in the op-ed that Prime Minister
Abe wrote, and she's getting a little bit
delayed, but she's getting a lot of
attention in Japan.
She got a lot of attention outside of Japan for
a long time.
And she wrote about what would the Japanese economy
look like if women participated in, in the
same proportion that men do, with the same result.
And it was staggering.
And the confluence of all those ideas led us to
10,000 Women and a bit of trial and error
along the way.
Many MBA kind of a curriculum, negotiating,
putting together a balance sheet, mentorship,
discipline programs, you know, having to turn in
a plan and having to have it -- you
know, that kind of connection.
And over time, it evolved six years into something
that produced the 10,000 -- of course,
we grow from there.
That's the business case, and it's the greatest
return on investment that you can have.
You can go and compete with everybody else.
Who's going to invest in people that other people
are investing in?
But this was a kind of an empty area.
And I'll just say what else isn't a business
case for us.
If you work whatever -- if you're in the
pharmaceutical industry, you get to that industry
because you believe in the power of, you know,
drugs to change and improve people lives.
If you're going into finance, you have to
believe in markets and you have to believe that what
you're doing is more than just earning a living, but
that you're accomplishing something in your life,
those are the kind
of people we attract.
And those are the kind of people we want to retain.
So much of what we do is on an institutional scale.
Very little is on a human scale.
So the business case was not only what we did
for the women.
The business case is what we did for the people at
Goldman Sachs because we got to do a program where
people in Goldman Sachs got to work with people
like Ayo and see what it means not to give
philanthropy to write a check, but what to give
to somebody to push somebody over a hump and
allow them to produce a business that
produces profits, allows them to hire other people,
who then go out and invest in their families
and accrete wealth.
And that kind of virtuous circle is what is
theoretically done in the great macro world, but
it's pretty nice and rewarding to see it done
on a human scale.
So that was our business case, personally, apart
from what we do for the women in the program.
Ms. Atkins: Thanks very much.
So Inez, I'd like to hear, in your work, you look
very much at the finance access to credit
and business and so on.
And, again, in the G20 and we have looked and had
goals for financial inclusion, which we found
quite hard to make progress on.
So I wonder how -- what advice you would give in
that area, what your experience tells you about
why it is that when women -- I believe women
entrepreneurs account for more than one-third of
small- and medium-sized enterprises, but they get
less than 10 percent of the total credit.
Ms. Murray: Sure.
Thank you very much, and hello,
Mum and ...
(laughter)
Really, very grateful to be up here
with such a great set of panelists.
You know, we really have to prove the business
case, and I work in an organization that's an
alliance of banks -- 34 banks -- commercial banks
around the world.
And in our alliance are banks that have indeed
proven the business case.
And what the business case shows is that
women are profitable.
They tend to have higher repayment rates.
They've higher average balances
in their savings accounts.
They tend to buy more product for the
single bank, and they have higher
net promoter scores.
So when the banks in our network are looking
at the business case, they're looking at the
profitability of the customers
and they have that data.
At the same time, there's loads of banks that don't
actually know anything about the segment, right?
There's no awareness in a lot of commercial banks
that women are actually a viable segment.
So there's a lack of awareness.
And then there's a lack of data.
So data meaning a lot of banks don't know how
to find women in the marketplace.
When they look at SME, they're already know --
they already think it's perceived, actually, to be
an expensive thing to do.
So in the United States, you can't make a small
business loan for less than $150,000.
So how can we kind of take cost out of that lending
approach, and what kind of other data sources can we
bring into that risk -- underlying risk assessment
underwriting in order to reduce the cost, I think,
is very important in SME lending.
But then as far as women's concerned, most banks kind
of disaggregate their customer data by sex.
So they cannot actually tell you how, you know,
how the women are performing
this portfolio.
So that data piece is a critical missing link.
And then we're moving on let's say
to the business case.
And I think there we do have good examples
of business cases.
And just like yesterday at the UN, there was
a meeting, and we were discussing this idea
of the solutions hub.
We need to codify those best practices so that
everybody knows that they exist, and really
share amongst banks.
And in our network, what we try to do is really --
if you belong to our network -- is you really
have to share that information.
And that's part of the commitment.
It's a quid pro quo.
You join the network, you get access to other banks'
information -- it's proprietary information.
They open up your doors -- their doors.
You can come and have a study tour
and talk to bankers.
I think bankers need to be persuaded by bankers.
I think being persuaded by technical assistance
providers -- those -- you know, they want to talk
to people that have actually been responsible
for P&L for this.
And that's what they really relate to.
So there's a number of things that we need
to do to support banks to get into this space.
And I think the initiative announced this morning
with Goldman and the IFC is a perfect example of
a two major global brands pulling together their
core competencies -- the strongest investment bank
in the world and one of the best TA
providers in the world.
No, seriously, the best -- IFC.
(laughter)
Pulling together that -- those set
of core competencies and really making a big play
and demonstrating that, you know, we're in this
for the long haul.
Likewise, I thought today, the launch of this --
credit where credit is due -- I mean, power of the
purse for me was the first time, you know, you really
saw a major bank get behind and analyzing what
the -- quantifying that opportunity.
And then today we have this, which shows, you
know, extraordinary potential if we do
integrate women into the labor market in terms
of GDP growth.
So I think there's, you know, a lot of potential
to really build on this momentum.
Ms. Atkins: I want to talk -- get you to talk
a little bit about what the difficulties are.
It's great to have, and perhaps we've flipped it
the wrong way because we had some of the proposals
for improvement at the beginning from Christine,
which were very helpful.
But in particular, and going back to Lloyd,
on this program that has been announced this morning,
how do you think that -- is it about helping the
bankers to know more?
Is it about helping the individuals that want
to get access to credit to know more?
How does -- how are you -- how would it
bring people together?
Mr.Blankfein: Credit and risk capital, of course,
because that's where the rubber meets the road.
Everything else you need -- you can train people.
You know what you're investing.
You lend somebody money.
You have to hope it gets back so you
can recycle it.
So that's been -- that's risk, and the point
is to do the credit work.
It doesn't make sense.
It was pointed out in the United States, unless
it's under 150,000, so you want to have -- all this feeds
into something, which I'll use the word scale.
How do you scale something?
How do you scale $10,000 loans, $20,000 loans?
You know, you could -- you know, and the study here
talks about the same analysis was applied to
Japan gets applied to the BRIC counties and then 11.
And our calculus is a 12 percent add on
that basis to GDP.
But you create that 12, you know, you create that
12 percent surge in GDP one, if you'll excuse me,
one Ayo at a time.
And, you know, 10,000 could be a drop
in the bucket.
So how do you scale this operation?
If this were a, again, making analogy to another
industry -- if this were a pharmaceutical and a test
-- for the FDA, the results have been proven
so good, they stopped the test, and they start
issuing the drug.
And the question is how do you achieve that scale,
and which is why I think the partnership between
ourselves -- because at the end of the day,
we're still a commercial venture.
We're not a national entity
or a supranational entity.
So the idea of the partnerships -- and we've
-- let me tell you, we've gone a lot with
the kindness of strangers.
We have a lot of partners who are working on all --
education partners,
financing partners, teaching.
But this last step of partnering with an
institution that has the wherewithal to command
capital and also the capability of distributing
in a sensible way and collecting it and
servicing it, that's a big deal.
For us, scale, scale, scale.
How do you do more of it?
Ms. Atkins: Thanks.
So Christine, I want to turn back to you about how
this is all about getting the capital providers
to understand more, but as Lloyd said,
he's not a supranational.
Of course, the IFC is, but the IMF is also about
scale and how to impress upon governments that this
is something that's worth it for them.
And then I'd also like to go to Cathy afterwards
and ask a little bit about not just the big macro picture
but also the individual picture because many of us
here in this world, in this world of finance,
we know we're generally in a minority amongst women.
Jane Harman is in the audience.
She was, you know, chair
of the Intelligence Committee.
That's also not a usual background for --
it's not a usual place to find women.
We know in our National Security staff, that it's
hard -- we believe in diversity -- it's hard
to find diversity.
So I'd like to also press a little bit on that.
But first to you Christine, about
governments and making the case there.
Ms. Lagarde: Well, as I said, I think there is
policy advice, there is surveillance that we can
do, there is holding governments accountable
for the promises that they make.
And there is the role model issue as well.
So as we were saying, if Japan can demonstrate that
they can address the aging population issue that they
have to deal with by changing the norms, by
transforming the culture, by opening the job
markets, by setting standards from the top
with the prime minister, minister of finances,
governor of central banks, all singing from
the same hymn song.
Then that's a very convincing case and it
should certainly indicate to other governments
around the world that, yes, it works and it makes
business sense and it makes economic sense
and it has consequences for the standard of living
of the entire population.
I would like to add just a couple of points.
One is, as you said, women are good workers because
they're well-trained, they are, as I said,
overexploited, underutilized,
and as a result, when they are rightly utilized and not
exploited, they are good workers.
That's demonstrated study after study after study,
whether it's Goldman Sachs, whether it's
McKinsey, whether it's Catalyst.
Everybody demonstrates it.
They are good spenders because they tend to spend
on, you know, the things that will help the next
generation, much more so than men.
And that's also a really important matter.
Now, two points that I would like to make.
I realize that I might be a little bit out of your
question, but point number one.
I think the banks better wake up because between
the fund crowding, the use of technology on a massive
scale, as is possible in some of the emerging
market economies where the retail banking is not yet,
you know, very strong, I think banks will soon be
seeing competitors that they had no idea about,
that will be coming sideways from, you know,
totally unexpected places and that will actually top
the women because the women will be good
reimburser, good borrowers.
So I think they should be careful.
Now, without, you know, applauding Goldman Sachs
too much -- (laughter) -- I would like to ask Lloyd
to describe one practice that they have inside
their firm which I think is absolutely terrific
to encourage women to actually come back to the
workplace after they've disappeared at a time
which is, as we all know, sensitive between the age
of 30-ish and, you know, under 40, because I think
you have something called the returnee program or
something of that nature, which is just smart --
makes business sense for you, but it serves the
women's purpose to reenter the workforce
after a certain time.
Is that okay, Caroline?
Ms. Atkins: No, that's totally fine.
I wanted to ask him about it too.
Mr. Blankfein: I'll say the most flattering thing
I can about the program.
It didn't evolve as anything to subsidize
or support women.
It was totally our venal, selfish, greedy efforts --
(laughter)
-- to get talented people into our
firm, which is, by the way, the most stable
and enduring motivation there could possibly be.
So that's so you'll know we'll keep doing it, but
we have problems keeping people in general.
We work people, as everybody know, like dogs,
keeping them in mid-career.
What we're happening to do -- there's a lot -- let me
tell you, there's a lot of advantages and pleasures
in being in the business as well, but the pressures
around women, when they sometimes leave even
though their careers are going well, even though
we kills ourselves to support them.
Sometimes they go, raise children,
and then, guess what?
They are still who they were when they left,
and we try to get them back.
And so what we do is we have another training
program for people in mid-career who otherwise
missed a few years and missed a few turns of
evolution in financial products, in the markets
and what happened in between.
And guess what?
We teach it to them.
That's a lot less expensive than starting
from scratch with a 22-year-old getting
out of college.
And so purely to -- purely for the benefit of Goldman
Sachs, we find ourselves doing something that
serves the interest of mid-career women.
Ms. Atkins: I wonder if the IMF,
the U.S. government, and other places could think about
similar kind of practice because we're all, as one
of you said, time poor.
Cathy, I think it was you.
So maybe I can turn to you and get your reaction
to that, but also to other government suggestions
and ways that you work with them
and a bit about yourself.
Ms. Russell: Well, I would say this.
I think one thing that I try to do when I work with
other governments is try to approach them with some
modesty about what's happening
in the United States.
And I think it's useful to remember that until
the mid-70s, you know, women in this country sometimes
had to have their husbands help them, you know,
get a credit card.
I do a lot of work on violence issues,
and I worked on the Violence Against Women Act, which
we passed here in 1994.
Until then, the domestic violence numbers here
were very high.
They're still high, but they're much better
than they were.
Took us a long time to get that bill passed.
And we made a lot of progress in that field,
but it's taken a long time.
And so when we go to other countries and say, "You
know, you need to do x, y, and z, a lot of times,
they hear it as the United States dictating what
needs to happen.
And they -- in some cases, they -- in many cases,
they're annoyed.
In some cases, they just feel that we're
so far ahead.
And I say, you know, we're not really.
I mean, we -- it hasn't been that long that we've
gotten a lot of things done.
And your countries will move ahead quickly too
if you take some of these steps.
I think that it's -- there's no question that
it's very challenging.
Japan is so interesting, especially for me to use
now when I go out and talk because I say,
"You know, what?
Prime Minister Abe is saying is we moved ahead
without our women, and look what happened.
And now we've got to go back
and bring them forward.
And this was a tremendous problem."
And you and I were together in Japan
with the Vice President.
And I think it was that -- that's a very interesting
story for other countries to hear because they're a
lesson of what not to do.
And I think countries are hearing that, and I think
the fact that Prime Minister Abe is being
so forthright about the mistakes they've made,
is really useful for other countries to hear.
So I hope that answers your questions.
I mean, I think as -- you know, in the policy area,
there's a lot to do, for every country.
I mean, there are so many countries where the laws
are just very challenging for many reasons, where
inheritance laws make it difficult for women
to inherit property, where -- there is some laws where
women, you know, I won't name the country.
But there's a law where if you get married and you
own property, your husband then has control over that
property even it was yours coming into the marriage.
I mean, there are very challenging laws in many
parts of the world that women have to face.
And so there are barriers in all sorts of ways.
But I think -- I am confident.
I, you know, I come at this in a very optimistic
way, and I feel like we're making progress.
And I think these multilateral forums that
we work in are really useful.
And I think that countries are coming together
and really looking for opportunities
to work together.
And, you know, I -- maybe I shouldn't say this, but
the Equal Futures Partnership, at the
beginning, I wasn't really clear about how that was
going to go forward.
But countries are so enthusiastic about that
I think because it's such high level participation
and because it's an opportunity for countries
to work together in ways that they didn't even
anticipate when they came into it.
And I think what we see going forward is perhaps
places where A and B country can work together
with Country C, who maybe needs help in an area.
So I think there are lots of opportunities going
forward for all of us to work together, identify --
we know now what the challenges are.
Everybody has pretty much agreed that women are
essential, that, you know, I'm like the worst person
for sports in the world.
But essentially, you know, you can't play a game with
half your team out there or with one arm behind
your back or whatever those sports analogies are.
(laughter)
They don't -- it just doesn't work, right?
Everybody gets that now.
And do it's a question of what do you do about it?
And we're just -- we have a pretty good idea
what to do.
You know, the private sector is doing
some great work.
Multilaterals are doing some great work.
We just all need to sort of work together and
coordinate our efforts so that we can move into
the future in a really productive way.
Ms. Atkins: Yes, so I think when you talked
about your work on domestic violence
and so on, some of the interesting research that
has been done shows that women who have no property
rights and less access to finance actually suffer
more from domestic violence.
And it shows clearly that kind
of power relationship.
And so there is a sense -- I agree with you, of
course -- there is grounds for optimism and probably
if one imagines 10 years ago, there wouldn't have
been a panel like this.
There wouldn't have been Goldman Sachs supporting
the kind of program that there are.
The IMS certainly didn't write such a paper as
it just has, and the Japanese prime minister wasn't
arguing for female labor force participation.
So things have certainly changed and are changing,
and it is encouraging to think about how those
elements feed on one another.
I want to turn back to Inez about this critical
point of what does it do for the women themselves
and for business when they have more access to banks
and to credit, and also to ask you to pick up on
Christine's challenge about, well, all very well
to get banks to understand better that women can be
great customers for them, but they may already be
too late on that.
Or they -- if they don't move quickly, they will be
too late because there will be technologies
that cut them out.
Ms. Murray: Yeah, sure, so to your first point, you
know, it's not just access to finance.
It's access to information, education,
and markets, right?
So the banks in our network are actually
providing all four pieces of that value proposition.
And that's really integral.
And they're working within an ecosystem, and the
ecosystem has other actors in it that help support.
So it is initiatives like 10,000 Women, it's
universities, it's training institutes,
it's women's business associations that do
advocacy and so on.
So it's not just the bank.
The bank needs support in developing the market of
women entrepreneurs to come to the doors and then
be on boarded correctly so that, you know -- Westpac,
for instance, one of our network members,
does a survey of women SME -- actually all SMEs -- about
4000 SMEs every year.
And 1500 of them are women.
And, you know, 45 percent of women did not know how
to do projected cash flows in Australia, right?
So that you would see -- so that's an example of a
core piece of know-how that, really, any small
business needs to know.
And so what that bank did, they internally have their
own financial education unit called
the Davidson Institute.
And they put on these targeted seminars
to really meet that market need.
But they did that in a way that's really -- they're
demonstrating return on investment because the
kind of brown building that they're doing with
that community is so substantial, and they're
able to measure it.
So to Christine's point, indeed, many different
actors are coming into the financial services space
and are going to pick off various profitable pieces
of a bank's business at the consumer level.
Unless banks start getting this idea that they need
to find the sweet spot between business value
and customer value.
And that value, really, when you look at the data,
if you can bring a woman in, like yourself over
there, make you a loyal customer, you will always
remember that bank.
You will support other women to come
into that bank.
We're seeing a lot of potential.
Talk about scale, Lloyd.
We're seeing a lot of potential.
If we catalyze networks of women that are customers
of banks already so that they can mentor each other
and coach each other and provide access
to business opportunity.
Women get empowered by sharing information.
They want to help each other.
Is that an innate -- I don't know.
But it is true and it's been observed time
and again with our banks that are doing these programs.
They're watching these networks.
Look what American Express has done with Small
Business Saturday.
It's absolutely incredible the kind of networking
that's happening.
And that's viral and it's organic
and the institution itself doesn't get involved.
It just catalyzes it and we can kind of
through that approach.
So I believe that if banks take this on in earnest,
they will, indeed, compete against the smaller actors
that are just picking away at various pieces
of their business.
Ms. Atkins: Well, that's very cheering as well.
And I think that we, as Cathy said,
getting now time poor.
And I want to leave -- (laughter) -- I want to
leave room for Valerie to say a few closing words.
But before I do that, perhaps I can just turn
back to Christine to say what do you think is the
most important thing that we -- what I should say
that here in the United States -- and I like
Cathy's point that we haven't got it right here.
We know that, and it's important for us also
to be -- to admit that and to look for ways that we can
improve and change.
But what are the most important things that
we can all come together to agree on?
Is it about female labor force participation?
Is it some other aspect of change?
Is it about the financial inclusion?
Or is it about everybody continuing to do, whether
it's public, private, banking, individual
education stories themselves?
Thank you.
Ms. Lagarde: I'd say the world over, the key thing
and the key investment is investing
in education of girls.
That's, you know, the best way to help, to develop,
and to move on.
(applause)
But then if you ask me specifically for
the United States, because I've lived in other places
in the world.
I think that there are lots of opportunities,
lots of openings, lots of people who are prepared
to do business.
I think what's a real issue in this country is
how can parents -- and I say parents on purpose --
can, you know, both have and raise children while
continuing their professional life.
And the lack of childcare centers, the lack of
infrastructure, the lack of ways to deal with it,
which some countries have addressed successfully, is
really I think a crying need in this country.
Ms. Atkins: So thank you very much.
Thank you very much to all of our panelists.
(applause)
Ms. Jarrett: Well, thank you for
a terrific panel.
Thank you, Caroline, for moderating.
One more round of applause for the panel.
(applause)
A few other comments I want to make.
First of all, I see Tina Brown is in the audience.
Later today, she is having an event on women
in the world.
And so we will be able to continue
this conversation there.
So where's Tina?
I thought I saw here her.
Well, you know what?
Maybe she left to go to the conference.
So that's another marker.
Also, the White House is sponsoring a summit on
working families, late spring, early summer.
And so we certainly will continue
this conversation there.
And anyone who's here today who wants to
participate in that, please just reach
out to Avra.
We would love to have you engaged.
We're going to be doing a series of convenings
between now and the summit to make sure we have the
most diverse breadth of ideas
to put on our agenda.
It's only one day, and already we're having
a hard time figuring out how we're going to squeeze
everything into one day.
I also want to mention that I saw
John Rogers in the audience.
He's the chairman of the Goldman Sachs Foundation.
So shout out to you.
Wave.
(applause)
You get a lot of credit as well.
Lloyd and Dina couldn't do what they do without your
complete, full support.
And to everyone in the audience, everybody who's
been watching online, we just want to thank you
for your commitment.
This was just a snapshot.
It's the beginning of the month.
And I would also mention that everyday this month,
we have a different secretary or department
head within the federal government who's doing a
blog about what their agency has done over the
last five years to support women and girls.
So I encourage you to go onto the White House
website and take a look at that.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for coming.
(applause)