Happy International Women’s Day!
Rogue Trader, The Wolf of Wall Street, Margin Call, The Smartest Guys in the Room (to name but a few) all have one thing in common. They are films about Money and Men. Nothing wrong with that but where are the films about the She-Wolves of Wall Street? The Smartest Women in the Room?
Here at MoneyMagpie we actually like men (and have some truly marvellous men working alongside us in the team). We want to see a world where we no longer need to identify anyone who works in finance (or any sector) by their gender. A world where we don’t talk about women in finance but rather people in finance.
But we aren’t there yet. The UN announced this week it’s going to take another 300 years for true gender equality to be a reality in the world. So, in order to make that happen we still need to promote and celebrate women and all that they have achieved since gaining suffrage 100 years ago.
There are a lot of brilliant women in finance in this country and around the world. Today though, on International Women’s Day, we want to take the opportunity to introduce you to some of the incredible women who work at MoneyMagpie. The women who work hard every day to try and make your lives a little easier and to help you navigate financial matters with confidence.
The Women of MoneyMagpie
We have our phenomenal CEO Jasmine Birtles who is evangelical about encouraging women to invest and to use their unique qualities to change the world of finance for the better.
Then there’s our indomitable Content Editor, Vicky Parry. Vicky works tirelessly to find ways to save you money and bring you the latest news and offers around the UK. She commissions the articles that we all love and is a powerhouse of innovation.
Working alongside Vicky is our Editorial Assistant Izzy Lawrence. Izzy is passionate about finding new and inventive ways to show you all different and unusual ways to make money and she’s our go to girl for cheap but nutritious recipes.
Read on to find out more about these three magnificent women:
Jasmine Birtles, CEO
We use the word inspirational a lot but it really is the only word to describe Jasmine, especially when it comes to women in the workplace and women forging their own path in the world. Jasmine started work as a financial journalist in the late 90s and since then has gone from strength to strength. Her whole ethos is based around ‘yes you can!’.
Jasmine has so many feathers in her cap she makes peacocks look like they aren’t trying hard enough. As well as being a financial journalist, TV and radio personality, money expert, speaker and writer, Jasmine has written 38 books, done a stint as a stand-up comedian and is a director of three companies (we could go on).
One of the best things about Jasmine is that she brings her wealth of experience, her common-sense attitude and her humour to the financial arena. There she fights tirelessly to make sure that we can all understand difficult subjects (like cryptocurrency, the world economy, stocks and shares) by demystifying concepts and explaining things in layman’s terms.
Jasmine is also evangelical about encouraging more women to get into investing. She will tell you that only 10% of women have a stocks and shares ISA, for example, compared with twice as many men. She wants to see this change.
Jasmine wants to see a world where work-life balance is better for women and men which would make it easier for everyone to take the top jobs and maybe have a family or at least not to have to work ridiculously long hours. She knows that the financial sector can be off-putting for some women as they see it as a male-dominated environment (which is still is to a large extent).
For women starting out in the industry today, Jasmine has this advice, “Be your own person. Don’t just try and follow the crowd and don’t try and be better than the blokes or more of a bloke than the blokes. We need more female qualities in the area of finance. The only way the city and financial services generally will be improved and made better will be if we women express better qualities than the men and refuse to go along with the lower tendencies that this industry can manifest -such greed, aggression and subterfuge.”
That’s Jasmine to a T. Be your own person and don’t follow the crowd. Of course at MoneyMagpie, we shorten that to Be More Jasmine.
Vicky Parry, Content Editor
As Content Editor Vicky is responsible for everything you see on MoneyMagpie and across our social media. She is quite literally a powerhouse of ideas and innovation. Everything you read and see, Vicky has had a hand in. And she only has two hands so we don’t really know how she does it.
Vicky came to MoneyMagpie eighteen months ago after a decade of running her own multi-award-winning media company. With a passion for solutions journalism and using our voice for good, she has empowerment at the core of everything we do.
Through her work for MoneyMagpie, she has seen that a huge number of women are financially vulnerable in spite of living in an “enlightened age”. This can be due to a number of factors – from having a longer life span to gender pay inequality and taking career breaks to raise a family. This fact has motivated Vicky to launch some exciting new projects and to constantly seek out ways to communicate with women seeking financial advice.
Vicky’s path to where she is now hasn’t always been easy. As a woman in business she has come across moments of rampant sexism. Patronising suggestions of “female breakfasts” while the men do business in the other room and clients consistently speaking to the men accompanying her (her staff) in business scenarios. However, never one to shy away from a fight, Vicky has seen these moments as opportunities to prove herself more.
She views International Women’s Day as a chance to inspire other women. She also feels the need to say she will do the same for men on International Men’s Day – she sees equality for all as the goal. But, she is proud to work for a female led company and recognises the opportunities these companies can bring to women and how they are hugely beneficial to a very male dominated industry.
Isobel (Izzy) Lawrence – Editorial Assistant
At MoneyMagpie, we not only encourage and celebrate gender equality. We also like to make sure we cover all the generational letters. Our staff range from the BBs (Baby Boomers), Gen X, Millennials to Gen Z. (We need to wait a few years before we can start again with Gen Alpha.)
Izzy is our Gen Z representative. She can explain to the BBs and the Gen X’s every social media term with the patience of a saint. Izzy is also a brilliant writer, researcher and Instagram wrangler. She can take any subject and turn it into an ingenious infographic or meme or animation.
She is passionate about clear communication and making sure that our readers can grasp whatever’s happening in the world. She has a rare talent for turning the scariest of stories into something we can cope with.
As well as coming up with cheap and nutritious recipes to share with you to help you keep your shopping budgets manageable, Izzy does media appearances for MoneyMagpie. She is just as brilliant in front of the camera or mic as she is sitting at her desk. Quite frankly we’d all be lost without her.
So there you have it. The inspirational women at MoneyMagpie.
