Reflections on 'Power Shift 2014 - Women in Finance' by Linda Scott

Last week of May, the second annual Oxford Forum for Women in the World Economy—more popularly known as “Power Shift”--gathered at the Saïd Business School for an intensive two days’ focus on financial inclusion for women. Once again, I was struck by the concentrated passion of the participants, their activist use of new data about women around the world, and their optimistic determination to improve conditions everywhere by closing the gender gap.Women’s exclusion from the financial system is a global phenomenon with measurable dimensions and known negative effects. Massive data sets and multiple analyses predict that the benefits of better inclusion would range from reducing poverty to improving productivity to better corporate governance. Women’s financial inclusion, therefore, is an agenda all world citizens should share.