British-Indian Expert, Bijna is on Mission to End Gender Disparity for Women in Finance

By: WE Team | Monday, 2 November 2020

Recently, on the Queen’s Birthday, a British- Indian financial expert was honored for her work in the field of inclusion and diversity. She has stated that she is on a mission to fix the diversity gap within the financial services sector particularly for women.

Dr. Bijna Kotak Dasani is an Executive Director at global investment bank Morgan Stanley. She was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II for “Services to Diversity and Inclusion in Financial Services” last month.

 Bijna says, "This fix in the diversity gap needs to be a firm partnership between both men and women and the shared responsibility discussion needs to extend beyond the boardroom and into the home environment.” She adds, “My primary focus is on promoting women into senior roles and I will be extending mentoring capabilities to India with a focus on helping as many young women as possible thrive and progress in their career trajectories.”

She is preferring to utilize this platform to support Indian women and women within the Indian diaspora. She believes in advocating and aiding in upskilling of women in the financial services workforce. The UK-based professional graduated from De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester with a degree in Business Administration and went on to study at the University of Oxford, where her postgraduate thesis examined gender parity in the C-suite within the UK financial services sector.

Bijna Kotak says, “My mother as a single parent raising three children whilst working full-time in financial services and the working world was very different then. We have relatively new layers of awareness, protocols, and policies in the corporate world today to accommodate and support flexible working arrangements and equal opportunities.” She adds, “I am keen to better understand assumptions about gender, social mobility, and ethnicity stereotypes. There is significant evidence to suggest the inclusion of diverse backgrounds leads to better outcomes in organizations. Businesses, therefore, do better when they truly reflect the communities, and the segments they aim to serve.”

Post her education, Bijna grew up as a strong advocate for equal opportunities in the workplace and assists on numerous boards, including the Inclusive Companies Network, CIO Net, Generation Success, Cajigo, and Fintech Connect.

Before joining Morgan Stanley, Bijna was associated with the various largest corporation in the financial services sector across the world that includes Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, Lloyds Banking Group. She has worked at Wall Street in New York and London, as well as in Asia for several years.

Bijna is also associated with her alma mater DMU in her hometown of Leicester to further develop the partnership that would aid the students by allowing social mobility backgrounds. Also, this move would help students to gain professional mentoring and work experience in the investment banking world.