A campaigning Financial Planner claims much more must be done to “make businesses accountable” to equality laws, rather than simply paying lip service.

Anna Sofat, a Chartered and Certified Financial Planner and managing director of Addidi Wealth, will mark International Women’s Day on Thursday with her proposals for a new business model.
 
Ms Sofat, who campaigns on diversity issues, will speak to leading figures in the financial services sector at a special ‘TED-talk’ style event hosted by platform company, Nucleus.

“The current model is all about shareholder value,” she will say.

“A new one is needed where this is just one pillar amongst others. We need a consumer, staff and community pillars too. It’s only when you have all pillars together that a strong, sustainable company is created.”

Demand is now being made to “move even faster” on gender equality, despite big strides having already being made, she said, because “while equality exists legally, we need to do much more to make businesses accountable to it.”
 
She will argue the only way this can be achieved is for businesses to specifically ‘not’ do the same as before: “For equality to be truly embedded, we can’t just have business as normal,” she will tell her audience. 
 
She said: “Now that women are finally getting an equal seat at the boardroom table, the new challenge is to decide how to make an impact, because the current system doesn’t suit women’s needs.”