International Women’s Day: Raising up Women in the Workplace

Joanne Murphy is the Chief Operating Officer at the Chartered Banker Institute, delivering the Institute’s business-wide transformation and people strategy.

As COO, Joanne leads the strategic review and annual business planning activity at the Institute. Joanne’s remit includes driving our professional inclusion agenda and she has executive responsibility across a variety of business functions including Learning, Professional Standards, Membership, Business Support, Finance, People, Innovation and Marketing. Joanne was instrumental in the development and launching of the Institute’s new Principles of Responsible Banking Academy in October 2022.

Joanne joined the Institute to support the establishment of the Chartered Banker Professional Standards Board (CB: PSB). Joanne led the professional standards implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and devised the supporting operational infrastructure. She also oversaw the implementation of the CB: PSB Foundation Standard for Professional Bankers and its subsequent adoption by over 185,000 bankers globally.

Joanne has over 30 years' experience in financial services, working in a variety of roles in business and retail banking with RBS from 2002, and prior to that with GE Capital. Joanne’s career began working in marketing and research at Scottish Television in London. Joanne is a qualified learning professional with expertise in six sigma methodology, in consulting and project capacity her activities include outsourcing, international relocation and process improvement.

Joanne is a member of both the Institute and of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development and holds an MBA in Banking and Finance.

Iwi has worked in higher education for over 20 years in wide range of professional services and academic roles. She is a Fellow of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and completed an Executive MBA in 2010.  She worked as both a management and financial accountant for nearly a decade and wanted to be a Finance Director, before her heart took her into the brilliant world of accounting education.  

She is currently a Reader in the Accounting, Banking & Finance department and the department lead on Postgraduate Employability.  Her current research focuses on intersectionality issues impacting on the racialised experiences of students in the academy, with particular focus on student transition from higher education to the graduate labour market and closing degree awarding gaps.

Louisa's current role is Head of Legal (Litigation) at the Co-operative Bank Plc, where she leads the legal litigation department. As a team, they advise and support the business on a wide range of issues and disputes, including complex FOS complaints and trends, regulatory issues and projects, litigated claims, commercial disputes, and fraud.

She has been at the Co-operative Bank for 9 years, having trained at an international law firm, DLA Piper, within their Litigation and Regulatory department. After completing her training contract, she worked at DLA Piper for 8 years as an Associate and Senior Associate. She joined the Bank on secondment in January 2015 and then took up a permanent position in the legal team.

She represents the Co-operative Bank on the Women in Banking Finance (WIBF) Manchester committee and is keen to promote and grow the WIBF network in Manchester.

Outside of work, Louisa has two young boys so spends most of her spare time running around after them, but she also enjoys running, reading, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.

David is founder and Managing Director of the award winning learning and development company ABSTRACT. He has had extensive experience of both leading and working with major businesses, ensuring that they have the right people, exuding the right behaviours and within the right environment, for the benefit of the organisation’s goals and objectives. David has developed a highly-regarded reputation that has delivered superior and sustainable results for many organisations over more than two decades. 

David is the creator of ABSTRACT's career management development programmes, ACCELERATE and AMBITION, that have so far helped thousands of women in the UK, Ireland and worldwide to develop and manage their careers, developing the growth of talented people in business to lift others as they climb. ACCELERATE won the Diversity Initiative of The Year at the Women in Finance Awards and David was Highly Commended in the IOD Director of the Year Awards in the category of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion.