Making it real

I spent Tuesday evening with 2500 women as a guest at the Deutsche Bank ‘Women in European Business’ (WEB) conference in London’s Barbican Centre.  It was the 10^th anniversary of the forum in the UK and forms part of a platform of annual events around the world that Deutsche Bank hosts for women in the financial and professional services community spanning New York to Singapore.

Deutsche Bank have established themselves as thought leaders in the financial services sector where the proportion of senior female executives in top-tier management remains woefully low.  They’ve done this by making a serious investment and a very public commitment across the world to their stakeholders in hosting these public events, and have made it clear that the question is not about ‘fixing women’ but providing them with the right support and perspectives in order to navigate their way, in much bigger numbers, to the boardroom.

The theme last night was ‘Leadership in a New World Order’, exploring the ways in which leaders drive change in an organisation and how leaders need to adapt to the re-balance of economic and political power globally in order to stay competitive.  Putting thornier geo-political arguments to one side, two central themes that emerge in this new world order are: connectivity and adaptation.   Connect or die.  Adapt or die.

From a brand perspective there is no question that Deutsche’s engagement with this high flying group of women has had an impact on its employer brand and has generated substantial goodwill.   Over the last decade, they’ve successfully moved these conversations on from the banal and created a highly connected group of like-minded people who are effecting real change both inside Deutsche and within the financial and professional services community.

The problem, however, is that they haven’t moved on with their own thinking in how to take advantage of this forum for real business benefit.  There’s no follow-up, no mechanism to communicate and extend the debate post the event, or to engage with individuals to do business with in the future.  There appears to be no vision as to how to turn this into a differentiating initiative that actually drives their business and adds to the bottom line.

Deutsche Bank has worked hard to lead a stagnant sector into new thinking on gender balance.  I’d really love to see them take that to the next level and connect it with real business benefit.  They’ve got the connectivity bit right, now it’s time to adapt or die.

(Rebecca Matts)

@msmatts

Logo talk

It was great to get together and talk logos with Angus, Tony, John and Patrick for this month’s Creative Review Logo Issue.

There was a time when a great logo could make a big difference to how a company is perceived.  Now brands rely on so much more than that, more than looks, what matters is how a company behaves, its role in the world.

Still, it’s wonderful to see how much creativity, craft and synthesis goes into marks like the Deutsche Bank and the Wool mark. I also love the Michelin man and The Stones symbol, they are just like nothing else.  The I love NY logo is great because it started a whole new way of doing things. The mark as a statement that generates a movement.

Looking to the future, I think mark and identities can still play an important role.  That is, if they are at the centre of systems that incorporate co-creation, content, different points of view. Systems that embrace change.

(Marina Willer)

(P.S. Because I worked on the Tate logo, I didn’t vote on it :0)