About Westpac

Founded in 1817, Westpac is Australia’s first bank and first company. Westpac provides consumer, business and institutional banking services along with wealth management, wealth administration and insurance services to customers across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region. The Group also maintains branches and offices in New York, London and throughout Asia. In total, Westpac has a network of 852 branches and 71 business centers.

The bank is recognized internationally as a leader in sustainability. It is one of the top five listed companies on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) by market capitalization, with AUD$100 billion as of 30 September, 2014. There are 12.8 million customers, 36,373 employees and 595,000 shareholders across the Group.

The Program

Westpac’s Women’s Markets Unit was established over 15 years ago. The aim of the Women’s Markets team is to provide women with education, information and networking opportunities through a national program run across both metro and regional Australia. The unit hosts a large number of events and seminars, and supports the Westpac distribution network as they build their own local women’s networks in an effort to increase both advocacy and business referrals. As of mid-2014, 2.1 million primary account holders at the bank were female, contributing AUD$1.55 billion in annualized revenue. Westpac Women’s Markets has been recognized as Global Best Practice by the World Bank.

In 2008 Westpac launched a standalone women’s online networking website, The Ruby Connection. The Ruby Connection raises the profile of women in the business world and in the community by becoming the public face of their ambitions. Ruby nurtures the business leaders of tomorrow through exclusive interviews with women at the top of their professions and those on their way there, and through offering a variety of learning and networking events. Ruby is a place where new business relationships and friends can be created in a supportive environment, offering a wide range of practical advice while helping pave the way for women to lead.

Westpac has also set bold targets for diversity and inclusion — increasing the representation of women in senior leadership roles to 44 percent by the end of 2014. All the company’s leaders are held accountable in performance reviews for achieving diversity outcomes, and 30 percent of its Board is women. This website examines the bank’s progress on diversity and inclusion, and the goals it has set to make further advances.

Westpac was one of the founding member banks of the Financial Alliance for Women and is a signatory to the UN Global Compact Women’s Empowerment Principles. To learn more about Westpac and the Women’s Market, read our Case Study on the bank.