Lloyd’s of London CEO isn’t proud of its gender pay gap — but she’s fighting for change

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Inga Beale, chief executive officer of Lloyd’s of London

“When we think back over the centuries that Lloyd’s has been doing business, of course we understand that women weren’t even in the workplace for several hundred years,” said Beale.

“It’s relatively recent that women have been in the workplace in Lloyds. And therefore that is one excuse or a couple of excuses why the gender pay gap is there, but it’s not good enough.”

“I’m really not proud of it at all,” Beale concluded.

In the U.K., firms that have 250 employees or more are now legally required to release their gender pay gap data to the public by April. Aside from Lloyd’s, a number of companies in the financial sector have reported, including Barclays, Standard Chartered and Virgin Money. However, according to the Financial Times, only one-sixth of U.K. employers in general have submitted their data, as of last week.

Lloyd’s has become more involved in inclusivity as of late, with a number of inclusion and diversity networks formed in 2014, in addition to Lloyd’s recently becoming a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter and committing to the Working Forward campaign.

According to Beale, Lloyd’s was one of the first signatories to the Women in Finance Charter, meaning that the company could set targets for what they were going to do, in terms of improving gender diversity at the senior levels.