Strong women for Europe’s finances
The European Central Bank introduces gender quota.
A change in culture. The European Central Bank (ECB) is becoming more female. “By the end of 2019 we aim to have 35% qualified women in middle management and 28% in senior management,” said the German director of the ECB Jörg Asmussen to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” – thus publicising a decision taken recently by the ECB Executive Board. This would mean that the percentage of women in middle management (currently 17%) and in senior management (currently 14%) would be doubled. The announcement was in keeping with the year 2013, which the ECB began with a major personnel decision: the German-French Christine Claire Graeff (photograph) has since been director of the bank’s communications department; currently she is the only other female director general at the ECB alongside the Italian Daniela Russo, director general of Payments and Markets Infrastructure. This initiative may well be the start of a widely desired change in culture. The ECB’s highest body, the Governing Council, is still exclusively male. All the same, in late November 2013 the ECB nominated Danièle Nouy to head the newly created European bank regulatory agency.
