She Means Business, an education and awareness initiative launched at IMEX in Frankfurt last year, debuted this year at IMEX America in Las Vegas with a call for transformation in finance.

Dr. Mara Catherine Harvey, a senior manager at UBS Switzerland AG and head of Global UHNW wealth management business across Germany, Austria and Italy, delivered a powerful message today on the economic impact of women in society. Harvey’s session was part of Smart Monday, powered by Meeting Professionals International, which drives the education program at IMEX America, the largest gathering of meeting and event industry professionals in the US. The trade show begins on Tuesday.

“Isn’t it high time for less words and more action?” Harvey asked. What is needed, she contended, is a “new narrative for an equal future.”

She then challenged a packed room of nearly 175 attendees to consider three questions:

• What would the financial industry look like if it focused on women?
• What impact does a pay gap have over a lifetime?
• What really hinders economic gender quality?

Over the next 45 minutes, Harvey guided the audience through a narrative and question and answer session that showed a continued high-interest passion among the predominately female audience. She said that 80 percent of purchasing decisions are made by women and that women hold more than 30 percent of global wealth and influence, with the remaining 70 percent growing at seven percent per year.

“You (women) are the world’s fastest growing emerging market,” she said. About 80 percent of women have to handle wealth alone at some point in their lives, yet only about 19 percent of women share financial decisions equally with their partners, with 58 percent of women letting their partners take the lead.

“Finance needs a profound transformation,” she said, with women, especially younger women, taking a broader role in gaining economic equality. “We need a new narrative to overcome biased semantics around money and risks that hinder women’s access to capital and women’s involvement in managing money. Men spend more time at work, where women spend more time working.”

“Finance needs a profound transformation. We need a new narrative to overcome biased semantics around money and risks that hinder women’s access to capital and women’s involvement in managing money.”

When asked why more men were not in the audience, she said all men need to be engaged. “Privilege is invisible to those who hold it,” she added.

Harvey said more than 600 million girls will enter the workforce in the next decade and immediately fall into a gap that will take the rest of their lives to climb out of whether independently or with a partner. In response, she has written four illustrated children’s stories with the goal of instilling a sense of financial confidence and economic gender equality.

The She Means Business program continued with breakout sessions on such topics as Lessons from Influential Women in Business and Going Beyond Women for Women: Why Diversity and Inclusivity Matter.

Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group, was instrumental in bringing the She Means Business format to IMEX in Frankfurt. “I’m very happy to bring the program here,” she said.

She Means Business has been a joint project between Bauer, the IMEX Group and tw tagungswirtschaft, a meeting and event industry publication based in Frankfurt. Kerstein Wünsch, editor of tw tagungswirtschaft, conducted research into issues and trends related to women in business that has helped formulated the content. Wünsch was scheduled to moderate Monday’s session, but could not attend due to a death in the family.

Annette Gregg, who began her first day as senior vice president of experience at MPI, overseeing the MPI Academy and Events teams, moderated the session, a project that she said was “near and dear to my heart.”