We’re excited to announce our new partnership with Potentia, the not-for-profit network dedicated to empowering female leaders across the accounting and finance profession.
Potentia is a great organisation that supports women at every stage of their leadership journey through mentoring, curated networking events, CPD-accredited learning and a thriving online community. It’s all about helping senior women in finance achieve their full potential, increasing female representation in senior leadership roles, and create a more level playing field across the profession.
Excitingly we’re Potentia’s first official corporate partner within the accountancy sector. Supporting and empowering women in what has traditionally been a male-dominated sector really matters and it’s something CP takes seriously. That commitment is often why women choose to join us.
For us this partnership builds on a long-standing commitment to championing diversity and inclusion and supporting women as they step into leadership roles. As part of this, we’re a signatory of HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter, a UK-wide initiative designed to improve gender diversity at senior levels across financial services.
The partnership also complements a range of existing initiatives here at CP, including our focus on attracting and supporting female talent through She Rocks Business events which include Women in Deals and Elavare Women in Finance Leadership networks in the Midlands and our Women in Finance insight days for young women considering a career in accountancy.
Currently women make up 28% of our Partners and Associate Partners whilst 43% of our Senior Managers are female. Our target for 2028 is to have 35% female representation across the Partner and Associate Partner group, and for 50% of our Senior Managers to be women, and the combination of our existing initiatives and working with Potentia will help us achieve this goal.
Personally, I’m also really looking forward to working with fellow CP female Partners Tara Mellett and Nicola Pearson to champion the partnership and to having real life impact for women in our sector.
Nerys Walters, Co-founder of Potentia, said our partnership with them: “Cooper Parry’s commitment to championing diversity, inclusion, and female leadership strongly aligns with our mission to support women in fulfilling their potential and increasing representation at board level. This partnership is just the beginning, and we can’t wait to see the impact we’ll create together.”
Dominique Highfield, CFO at DFS and Advisory Board Member at Potentia, added: “Potentia has built something genuinely special. Being part of it through the advisory board and hosting The Potentia Playbook for CFOs has given me a front row seat to just how much having the right people in your corner matters for women building careers in finance. The cheerleaders, the connectors, the people who open doors you didn’t even know existed. Cooper Parry gets that, and I’m really glad to have them on board.”
