Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the T&T Stock Ex­change Eva Mitchell yes­ter­day called on pri­vate and pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions to “not just talk the talk” but to “walk the walk” when it comes to the is­sue of break­ing gen­der bi­as­es.

“Here at the T&T Stock Ex­change we are com­mit­ted to break­ing every bias. We have en­sured that our re­cruit­ment process is fo­cused on se­lect­ing the best can­di­date for the role re­gard­less of gen­der,” Mitchell said.

“This has re­sult­ed in 85 per cent of our man­age­ment team be­ing fe­male and it is some­thing I am so very proud to say. This oc­cur­rence, is some­thing that we take great pride in,” she said.

Mitchell made the state­ment yes­ter­day as she rang the T&T Stock Ex­change’s open­ing bell as part of the glob­al ini­tia­tive by The World Fed­er­a­tion of Ex­changes (WFE) to cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2022 ( March 8) and pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty, high­light the ben­e­fits of a di­verse and in­clu­sive work­place, and recog­nise the con­tri­bu­tion of women in build­ing a bet­ter fu­ture for all.

This year, a record to­tal of 121 ex­changes and cen­tral coun­ter­par­ty clear­ing hous­es (CCPs) around the world were in­volved in events for the an­nu­al ‘Ring the Bell for Gen­der Equal­i­ty’ ini­tia­tive.

Nan­di­ni Suku­mar, CEO of the WFE said: “Ex­changes and CCPs cel­e­brate the role of women in the work­place and look for­ward to even greater progress in the years ahead. By ring­ing the bell, pub­lic mar­kets are giv­ing voice and vis­i­bil­i­ty to women every­where.’’

Ton­ni Brod­ber, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Unit­ed Na­tion’s Women Mul­ti Coun­try Of­fice-Caribbean, who al­so de­liv­ered re­marks at yes­ter­day’s vir­tu­al event, said gen­der equal­i­ty is sim­ply good for busi­ness.

“The pri­vate sec­tor is a key part­ner in achiev­ing gen­der equal­i­ty and the em­pow­er­ment of women. Among all the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties that ex­ist in the world to­day, one fact is un­ques­tion­able: com­pa­nies with greater gen­der equal­i­ty en­joy high­er lev­els of growth and bet­ter per­for­mance,” she said.

“Not on­ly is gen­der equal­i­ty bet­ter for coun­tries eco­nom­ic suc­cess on a macro-eco­nom­ic lev­el, re­search has al­so shown that com­pa­nies that are in­ten­tion­al about their im­ple­men­ta­tion of gen­der equal­i­ty and women’s em­pow­er­ment prin­ci­ples are more prof­itable. This is some­thing I am proud to say every year this is ev­i­dence based gen­der equal­i­ty is good for busi­ness,” Brod­ber said.

Prin­ci­pal Of­fi­cer & Head of Debt Cap­i­tal Mar­kets at IDB In­vest Ca­r­ole Sanz-Paris said while women were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed by job loss­es due to the pan­dem­ic it now gives them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage in eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery that is more sus­tain­able and in­clu­sive.