The beginning of Women’s Career Society
Women’s Career Society (WCS), est. 2019, was established with the purpose to draw attention to women´s under-representation within specific fields of business and to create an inspiring and supportive network for female business students.
The idea originated in the beginning of 2019 when the finance subject association of Hanken School of Economics, HankInvest, had a record number of women on its board. This record number of women meant 4/12 members, so essentially still only 33% of the board was women. The four of us had participated in several events organized by the subject association and had noticed there was great under-representation of women at the events. This drew our attention and sparked the idea of WCS. We wanted to encourage more female students to the association’s events, have them feel comfortable attending, and hopefully lead them to later seek into the business world even more deeply.
The fact that the barrier for women students to apply for male-dominated events, majors and jobs is high is something that we are trying to draw attention to and change by striving to strengthen women’s self-confidence. Out of our own experiences we felt there was a need for an encouraging network, and the basic idea was just to create something to inspire female business students. A supportive network where women were able to share their experiences within studies and working life, as well as learn from other network members. Additionally, the goal was to create a space in the business world where women feel welcome and safe.
WCS started as an organization primarily aiming to attract female students at Hanken majoring in finance. Both because of the increased interest and participation, WCS quickly grew into something else. WCS is now open for all interested and in need of a strong supportive network. Since 2020 WCS has worked together with students from Aalto University which has been one of the defining steps on the way to something bigger. Starting 2021 WCS aims to target all Finnish business students, especially female business students. Hence, WCS will also become an independent organization during 2021, separate from other subject associations. Nonetheless, WCS will always remain interested in continuing cooperation with other organizations.
As the story of WCS continues we founders have decided to take a step back and trust the development and growth of WCS into the hands of the new board of 2021. We are beyond excited to see where WCS will be in a few years, as we believe there is still a lot of untapped potential. Hope you are here to follow along the journey!
/ Miriam, Catarina, Sina & Rebecka
