I recently attended the “Yes She Can” launch event, hosted by The Wisdom Council. I have to say that I find many of these female-focused events put me off. I am not a fan of positive discrimination and often that is what appears to be suggested. 

However, knowing many of those involved I was intrigued so felt the time would be well spent to discover what it‘s all about.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Firstly, the room wasn’t just full of women, which is a good omen in my book for these type of events because it will generally mean that there is a more rounded view.

Secondly, it wasn’t about pushing women ahead of men or bashing men at all, again, another good sign. This was about engaging women and better communicating with them about financial services.

We could all do with communicating better about financial services and financial advice, so the outcomes could only be positive.

There were many interesting comments and stats that came out of the talks and panel discussion, but one that struck me was that women often don’t see themselves as investors, even when they have a pension or an ISA.

They don’t see saving the same way as they see investing but in my opinion, when you have any financial product you are an investor. With 5.2m women holding cash ISAs, that it a lot of women who are already investing.

One of the questions from the audience related to the fact that issues with engagement in financial services by women was not new and why had it not been addressed before now.

Personally I feel that the biggest difference we see today that is driving change is the balance of women in senior positions in the financial services industry.

When I first started work you would have struggled to get five senior women on a stage together, not because they did not want to be there addressing the issues, but because they just were not in the type of position to encourage the change that was needed.

As an industry I feel that we are making great progress on gender diversity, the change since I began working is enormous.

It is because of this we can now have these kinds of events that drive the engagement of women in their finances.

We will continue to strive for better long-term outcomes for all, but especially for those that may not appreciate the value that advice and investing can have.

To work towards this, at my company St James’s Place we’ve recently launched START, a financial education portal aimed at equipping young people (both women and men) with the tools and information to take control of their own financial futures. I hope more do the same.

Claire Trott is chair of the Association of Member-Directed Pension Schemes and head of pensions strategy, St James’s Place Group