Finnish gentlemen’s club reviews its no-women policy
Following heavy criticism, the Helsinki stock exchange club has sent a survey to its members querying about their views on whether the club should start allowing women to become members.
The exclusive gentlemen’s club in the heart of the Finnish capital Helsinki, The Helsinki Bourse Club, is reviewing its no-women-policy. The club, which is closely associated with the Helsinki stock exchange, came under fire at the end of last year after several high-profile people working in the Finnish financial industry called for it to either change its policy or its name.
FBNW has now learned that the club has sent a survey to its members asking whether they think women should be allowed as members. Kasperi Putkonen, executive director at Goldman Sachs in Finland, said that his answer to the club’s survey was ‘yes”. In the box below where members were to give reasons for their answer he stated: “I don’t think that in an equal society in the year of 2018 this needs any reasoning.”
The chairman of the club, Juhani Mäkinen, refused, however, to comment on what the feedback has been from its members so far about its no-women clause and whether it might end up changing the policy as a result of the answers in the survey that is now being conducted.
The club has been heavily criticised for its non-women clause by several prominent Finns working in the financial industry. Lauri Rosendahl, president of Nasdaq Nordic, and between 2009 and 2016 president of Nasdaq Helsinki, told Nordic Fund Selection Journal at the end of last year that in his opinion both genders should be able to establish clubs, whether they are for just men or women or for everyone. “In this case, however, its name and the association to the stock exchange and the exchange industry is the issue,” he said. “If a club wants to engage in a dialogue within an industry or sector, it should be open to all people within it. Naturally, this club could also, as an alternative, change its name.”
Lauri Rosendahl said that despite being asked to join the club on several different occasions, he has always refused due to its nature of being a gentlemen’s club only. However, he told Nordic Fund Selection Journal that there has since been a dialogue between him and the club. “I know of some board members in the club that have had a diversity agenda. However, the status today is what it is. The justification has merely been the 100 plus year tradition,” he said.
Another prominent figure in the Finnish financial scene and a member of the club, Timo Ritakallio, CEO of the Finnish pension company Ilmarinen and the soon-to-be president of the OP Financial Group, said that he absolutely thinks that both sexes should be allowed as members of the club. “There’s, for instance, a growing number of women working in managerial positions in finance. Also, there are more women sitting in the boards of listed companies than ever before,” he said.
Things also took a turn at the beginning of December, when the CEO of The Finnish Foundation for Share Promotion, Sari Lounasmeri, announced that the foundation wanted to terminate the club’s lease in its current premises at the Helsinki Pörssitalo when it runs out in 2020 and renegotiate the terms. She said that the decision to rent out the premises to a gentlemen’s club, which can’t represent the majority of the Finnish stock investors, didn’t adhere to the foundation’s principles and that the foundation had received many enquiries from executives of Finnish listed companies that have expressed concerns about the club’s discriminatory practices and its close association to the stock exchange. “I think the club has understood our stance and will decide on their part what they want to do in the future. Each organisation makes its own rules,“ Sari Lounasmeri said. She added: “Listed companies and the finance world want to distance themselves from this sort of practices. Investing and economy belong to everyone. The main idea behind the stock exchange is that everyone can get involved.”
More on the story can be read on Nordic Fund Selection Journal issue 6/2017.
