To have fun Ladies’s World Banking’s forty fifth anniversary, we’re showcasing the voices of people from all over the world who’ve formed and touched Ladies’s World Banking journey since its inception in 1979 to as we speak!
These are tales from throughout Ladies’s World Banking’s attain from the ladies we serve and our prospects, to allies and ladies in management who’ve contributed to ladies’s financial empowerment and monetary inclusion.
Verónica Gavilanes Véjar’s journey in banking is a robust testomony to her perception within the transformative energy of monetary providers. Because the first-female CEO of BancoSol Bolivia, a number one monetary establishment in monetary and digital inclusion, Verónica’s management isn’t solely reshaping the financial institution but additionally setting a precedent for all the monetary sector. With over three many years of expertise, her imaginative and prescient for a extra inclusive monetary world has been a driving pressure within the success of BancoSol.
Her journey into banking started at an early age. “From a younger age, I understood that entry to monetary assets is important for folks to comprehend their tasks and obtain their goals,” she shares. Verónica’s drive for banking got here from a deep understanding that lack of entry to capital is a significant barrier to progress, particularly for ladies. Her profession started when she was simply 19, balancing college research along with her skilled ardour. By 25, she was already main a enterprise unit at a significant financial institution. “Having began so younger allowed me to construct a strong profession,” she displays, underscoring how her early publicity formed her values as a pacesetter.
Verónica’s management of BancoSol is a defining second, not solely in her profession but additionally for the establishment itself. “Main BancoSol is a deep honor for me,” she says. “The establishment was based with a objective that mirrors my very own: to contribute to a extra sustainable world via inclusive finance.” Her imaginative and prescient for BancoSol is centered on making a monetary system that serves folks, with a deep dedication to empowering ladies and selling gender fairness.
A Dedication to an Inclusive Office
Since taking the helm, Veronica has labored relentlessly to create a tradition of gender equality inside BancoSol. In 2022, she launched a strategic initiative centered on reaching measurable progress in gender equality. “We’ve a sturdy sustainability technique that promotes gender equality at each stage of the group,” Verónica notes. This technique contains formidable objectives tied to the UN’s Sustainable Growth Objectives making certain that gender equality (SDG5) is prioritized throughout the establishment’s operations.
Below her management, via the creation of The Avanza Ladies Programwhich covers each inner and exterior areas, the group continues to advertise a tradition of respect and equal alternatives for everybody inside a various and inclusive work atmosphere.
Verónica emphasizes that gender equality is not only about metrics—it’s about embedding intentionality into each side of the group. “Gender equality isn’t the accountability of any single division; it’s a collective dedication,” she asserts. “As a result of when a lady advances, all of us advance.” This mindset is woven all through BancoSol’s tradition, with gender equality mainstreamed in all the things from hiring processes to management improvement.
Verónica’s strategic strategy to gender inclusion isn’t nearly coverage. It’s a couple of cultural shift inside the financial institution. “At BancoSol, gender intentionality should be skilled as a cross-cutting worth in organizational tradition,” she explains. “Actual change happens when the gender perspective is actively and constantly built-in in any respect ranges.” This dedication extends to worker coaching, vendor choice, and management improvement applications—making certain that BancoSol is not only assembly quotas however genuinely fostering an inclusive atmosphere.
The Energy Of Avanza Lady
The Avanza Mujer program is a gender-smart banking mannequin designed to advertise the expansion of women-led companies and shut financial gaps within the monetary system. This program demonstrates that specializing in gender can drive each social affect and monetary returns. “By listening to our shoppers, understanding their boundaries, and creating tailor-made options, we’ve developed a program that’s each transformative and financially sustainable,” Verónica shares proudly.
This system’s success lies in its holistic strategy, mixing gender-specific methods with measurable enterprise outcomes. Verónica highlights that aligning gender variety objectives with enterprise efficiency has given BancoSol a aggressive edge. “This integration has been each difficult and rewarding,” she displays.
BancoSol’s program affords specialised monetary merchandise and in addition gives free value-added providers, corresponding to help in constructing enterprise abilities and capabilities to help ladies entrepreneurs in Bolivia. In June 2024, BancoSol turned the primary Bolivian financial institution to difficulty a gender-themed bond, elevating roughly USD 30M within the native capital market with backing from BID Make investments. By March 2025, the bond funded over 3,200 operations for women-led companies throughout the nation. Early outcomes are promising: for the reason that program’s launch, the gender hole in common mortgage sizes has narrowed by 0.9%, and ladies’s mortgage portfolios have grown 37% quicker every month in comparison with males’s, notably within the SME sector, which has traditionally been underserved for ladies.
A Valued Ladies’s World Banking Asset Administration Portfolio Firm
Verónica Attributes A lot of Bancosol’s success to its partnership with Ladies’s World Banking Asset Administration (WAM).This collaboration has helped BancoSol strengthen its mannequin and consolidate its place as a pacesetter in inclusive finance. “The help and strategic imaginative and prescient of our shareholders, particularly WAM, have been essential,” she affirms. “This partnership has allowed us to consolidate our enterprise mannequin, and as we speak we’re acknowledged as a pacesetter within the sector.”
Verónica emphasizes that it’s not nearly monetary help; it’s about shared values. The partnership with WAM has supplied BancoSol with a broader imaginative and prescient and a way of solidarity in its mission to empower ladies. “The dedication of our shareholders has been completely key,” she says. “Their help has been a lever for our sustainability and competitiveness.”
Empowering Ladies Entrepreneurs
Past inner insurance policies, BancoSol is working to create a profound affect within the Bolivian group by empowering ladies entrepreneurs. Verónica shares a robust story of 1 such girl, Soledad García, an entrepreneur from Potosí who exemplifies the resilience of ladies within the nation. “My job is to work and help my household,” Soledad says, a sentiment that Veronica believes captures the essence of BancoSol’s mission: “In every of them, BancoSol finds inspiration to proceed constructing a extra inclusive monetary system.”
BancoSol’s dedication to supporting ladies entrepreneurs via coaching applications, mentorship, and entry to capital is central to its mission. “We firmly consider that serving ladies entrepreneurs is a dedication to the nation’s improvement,” Verónica says. “Ladies increase the well-being of their households, energize their communities, and contribute to sustainable and inclusive development.” This dedication is driving each the financial and social improvement of Bolivia.
Trying Forward: A Sustainable Future
As Verónica seems to be to the long run, she stays dedicated to persevering with BancoSol’s management within the realm of gender-smart finance. BancoSol has been a trailblazer in creating the primary gender social bond in Bolivia, and this yr, the financial institution is making ready to launch its second difficulty, additional solidifying its place as a pacesetter in sustainable finance. “We’ll proceed to prepared the ground in making finance work for ladies,” Verónica affirms, her voice stuffed with confidence and objective.
Verónica’s management at BancoSol serves as an inspiring instance of how intentional gender inclusion, when aligned with enterprise technique, cannot solely rework a company but additionally drive broader societal change. Along with her on the helm, BancoSol is not only a financial institution—it’s a pressure for social progress, a beacon for different monetary establishments to comply with, and a pacesetter in empowering ladies each as prospects and leaders.
Ladies’s World Banking is devoted to financial empowerment via monetary inclusion for the practically one billion ladies on the planet with no or restricted entry to formal monetary providers. Utilizing our subtle market and client analysis, we flip insights into actual motion to design and advocate for coverage engagement, digital monetary options, office management applications, and gender lens investing.
As a part of our present technique, we’ve helped present over 86 million ladies in rising markets – focusing on 100 million by 2027 – entry and use of monetary services and products which can be remodeling ladies’s lives, households, companies and communities, and driving inclusive development globally.
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