Female bankers get serious about leadership

By Kim Da-ye

Maybe it’s President Park Geun-hye’s impact on the financial industry. Suhyup Bank also known as National Federation of the Fisheries Cooperatives appointed its first ever female vice president on April 18. Woori Bank, Korea’s second-largest and a state-owned lender, promoted a regional head to be the bank’s first female director last month.

The Korea Network of Women in Finance (KNWF), an association of senior female bankers, wants to seize the moment and make the most out of the country’s first female presidency. As female bankers get serious about taking leadership positions, the association wants to be more than a social gathering for networking and knowledge sharing. It appointed four politicians and experts on women’s issue as advisors in attempt to strengthen its lobbying power.

One of the four advisors is Lee Kye-kyung, a former lawmaker of the Grand National Party, now the ruling Saenuri Party, who managed the Women’s News and now chairs the Equality Realization Alliance.

Lee and three other members are current or former members of the National Assembly National Policy Committee. This committee screens bills submitted by the Financial Services Commission, the country’s top financial regulator, and its affiliated agencies including the Financial Supervisory Service. The committee naturally wields influence in the financial industry.

Lee talked about her achievement in campaigning to abolish the banks’ old customs that required newly recruited female employees to pledge that they would quit when they get married.

“I spent my twenties, running around collecting signatures for the abolishment of the custom,” Lee told the senior bankers who gathered at the quarterly meeting of the network last Wednesday.

“It’s such a shame that banks still have no female president ... During the savings bank scandal, I wondered if things would have gone that bad if women were in charge of them. I acutely felt that women should get influential positions in banks.”

Another advisor is Kim Young-joo, a lawmaker of the opposition Democratic United Party. Kim is legendary for leading the union of Seoul Bank which was acquired by the country’s third-largest lender Hana Bank and being the deputy head of the Korean Financial Industry Union in the 1990s.

During her union activities, Kim contributed to the abolishment of the “female banker system” in which women were customarily given lower wages than men and blocked from promotions. The system was put an end to in 1996 after the labor ministry asked banks to correct the discriminatory customs. It naturally led to the unified wages for both women and men in banks.

Kim is now the secretary of the opposition parties in the national policy committee, and urged the members of the network to report any unfair practices within banks.

The other advisors are Kang Seok-hoon, a lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party and an economics professor at Sungshin Women’s University, and Kim Ae-sil, a former lawmaker of the Grand National Party and former chairwoman of the Korean Women Economists Association. Both couldn’t attend the meeting.

The Korea Network of Women in Finance celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, and Chairwoman Kim Sang-kyung, the CEO of the Korea International Finance Institute, vowed to make a difference in the coming years.