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Women in Finance Charter

At Foster Denovo, we are committed to building a more inclusive and representative financial services industry. We signed up to the Women in Finance Charter in 2023 and have exceeded the principal targets it sets.

By continuing to champion gender diversity across our business and create opportunities for women to progress into leadership roles, we play a visible role across our sector.

Women hold 44% of senior management roles, above the stretching target we chose of 40%, well above the industry average of 36%.

This level of representation was also reflected in the make-up of our Board, where women with a seat at the table went up from 22% to 33%.

And female colleagues now make up the majority of our 450-strong workforce, going from 54% in 2024 to 55% in 2025.

By any measure, these are impressive achievements which demonstrate just how empowering women across our business not only delivers greater equality but has helped to drive commercial growth and development.

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44%

Senior management roles held by women

55%

Total female colleagues (2025)

33%

Representation on our Board

Leading by example

Much of the success of this ongoing effort is down to senior executive ownership. Our group managing director, Helen Lovett, and our director of people and culture, Louise Blair, drive the progress we are making.

Regular reviews and metrics, such as internal dashboards and quarterly board reporting, means this project has become business as usual for us.

Helen
Louise Blair

Recruitment in our image

Together with our people and culture team, we have pioneered inclusive retirement to ensure women at every stage in their career can grasp viable employment opportunities with us.

As well as creating personalised, flexible, hybrid working which more than half our employees sign up to, we use inclusive phrasing in job interviews and aim for diverse candidate shortlisting and interview panels. We also train our hiring managers, including covering unconscious bias awareness.

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Celebrating Women in Finance in Foster Denovo

We have proudly shared the part we play in the charter with an internal communication campaign dedicated to telling the story of how it’s empowered our female colleagues and leaders: in their own words.

It’s also a mainstay of our quarterly employee engagement survey, providing feedback to help us to assess how we can improve both the female and overall employee experience.

Dedicated wellbeing ambassadors also support our ongoing diversity, wellbeing and community initiatives to ensure everyone benefits from our enlightened recruitment approach.

Danielle Oosthuizen

A further word on flexible working

Traditionally, women have borne the burden of greater domestic responsibility, be that raising children or looking after ageing relatives. We recognise this reality and design individualised working options with these challenges in mind.

Getting the job done will always be a priority but giving our colleagues the agency to do it while juggling the rest of their lives supports our productivity and morale. We continue to monitor how flexible working works by gender and how it cements retention rates.

This approach has naturally led us to enhanced neurodiversity and inclusive management training for leaders across our diverse business.

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Over the her-izon?

We recognise that creating a truly inclusive workplace is not a one-off activity. We remain committed to maintaining and building on our strong female representation in leadership, while ensuring a culture where everyone can thrive.

In practice, this means:

  • Strengthening female representation at senior levels
  • Investing in inclusive recruitment and leadership development
  • Continuing to promote flexible and supportive ways of working
  • Monitor progress transparently and hold ourselves accountable through the Women in Finance Charter framework

Our motivation is to offer the best example we can to our female colleagues and to demonstrate to the industry that this focus opens the door wider to so much more potential and creativity in service of the commercial objectives we all strive towards.

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Our blogs

Click here to read our Women in Finance blogs.

Women in Finance blogs

What our clients say

Harshit Mehta

“It was very easy to deal with our Partner at Foster Denovo during the entire remortgage process. They tried their best to get the remortgage completed in time and even helped escalate complaints we had with solicitors. I highly recommend Foster Denovo for financial and mortgage advice.”

James Hunt

“Feel very lucky to have the advice and expertise on offer, especially how much time was dedicated to our case. Having been supported through 3 applications and receiving excellent client service I would always recommend Foster Denovo.”

Alison Field, Group HR Director, Briggs Equipment

“We are always very busy and so I appreciate that we can fully outsource our pensions and benefits admin including Group Life Assurance, Group Income Protection and Private Medical Insurance to the Secondsight team. And I can’t speak highly enough of you and your team.”

John Tyszkiewicz

“Our Partner is a mortgage rock star.”

Thomas Edwards

“Process became difficult half way through so we had to sell a long time before buying the new property. Our Partners were fantastic from start to finish, kept me informed and chased all relevant parties immediately when needed. Literally faultless from my perspective.”

Sophie Whiteway

“Our Mortgage Partner was great- they touched base frequently without being overbearing during our house hunt. We waited a long time from offer acceptance to completion date and required a mortgage offer extension which was arranged without issue. My partner is self-employed so our Partner also ensured we had all the correct information and documents to gain mortgage approval. Would definitely recommend”

Ava Dennie

“The whole process from beginning to end was seamless. We were kept informed by our consultant at all times, no matter the time of day. There were areas of anxiety but our consultant dealt with it all and ensured all queries were dealt with as soon as possible. Would highly recommend.”

Karen Morris

“My Partner is extremely friendly and explains any questions I have. They fully and competently guided me through the process and I have full confidence in their knowledge and understanding.”

James Garner

“Our Partner is amazing, what a credit to any team . House would never have gone through without her. They went the extra mile every day”

Alexander Elliott

“Our Partner was fantastic, they made the whole application process stress free and was very adaptable to our quite specific requirements when finding us a mortgage that suited our needs.”

Amanda Standish

“A professional and personalised service. Worked tirelessly to find a mortgage suitable for my needs. Provided sound knowledge and advice and always following data protection procedures.”

“David has been very helpful in developing a strategy for us, with wills and trusts being the main component as well as investment ideas and life insurances. He has always been very patient and has taken the time to explain all the intricacies of these financial vehicles.

You can imagine the quantity of documents that we had to handle over the period. Tireless Kirsty was the one who handled them… She made a very complex process much simpler for us.”

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