2023 Update: Wise’s commitment to improving diversity, equity and inclusion for women in tech

At Wise, our vision is money without borders. In order to build the future of global money, we need a team that’s as diverse as the customers we serve.

In September 2020 we signed the HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter, pledging to improve the representation of women in the Wise senior leadership team. The Women in Finance Charter was created to increase women’s representation across financial services, especially in the most senior management levels of their organisations.

This report covers the work we’re doing at Wise to achieve better women’s representation, our UK reporting on the Gender Pay Gap and our progress towards our Women in Finance Charter goal.

Continuing to increase our representation of women at Wise

Overall, women represent 51% of Wisers and among our Leads (managers) women represent 46% (up 5pp YoY). Therefore our focus has been on increasing our representation of women in our most senior leadership levels (Level 8+ or Director and above) which is currently at 30% (up 4pp YoY). Our aspirational goal is to reach 40% by the end of 2025.

We are really pleased to have maintained 40% women in our executive leadership team (C-suite) and our Board is currently 44% women (up 6% YoY), demonstrating the progress we have made over the last 3 years particularly at the top of our organisation.

As of today, all our functional teams are made up of at least 45% women globally, with the only exception of the Engineering team:

Women represent at least 50% or more of our Senior leadership teams for over half of our functional teams globally:

The functional teams that are currently below the 40% Senior leadership goal, have set specific OKRs dedicated to improving the representation of Senior women leaders at Wise, across hiring, retention and career development opportunities. Some of their initiatives include mitigating any potential biases in their people-related processes, more deliberate outreach to Senior women candidates and diversity-related recruitment organisations, and ensuring talent management and career growth opportunities for their pipeline of Senior women. We are pleased to see progress in our Product team for instance, moving +8pp YoY as a result of these actions.

Our focus for 2024 will be continuing with deliberate actions across our functional teams to ensure more consistency, sustainability and scalability in our approaches; strengthening our internal diverse pipeline of leaders and continuing to broaden our hiring strategies to attract the widest set of talent pools available.

Continuing to increase our investment in women in tech

We are focused on developing a diverse early careers pipeline particularly for engineering and tech-related roles. We know we can make a huge difference in increasing access, aspiration and inspiration for those from underrepresented backgrounds in the tech industry, including women.

We run our Wise Women Code program each year to help accelerate women’s paths into technology-related careers. We welcome women, non-binary folks and trans women to our offices for 3 days of knowledge sharing, side-by-side coding sessions and networking to provide a glimpse into the fintech industry.

We encourage applications from current students, those having recently switched careers and those who return to the workforce after extended leave. We seek to hire as many potential participants as possible. For the incoming 2024 programme we have expanded our reach across Budapest, London, Singapore and Tallinn - bringing the opportunity to over 60 women and non-binary participants globally. Since 2022, we have hired 4 participants into full-time roles already.

In addition to this, we support those from underrepresented socio-economic backgrounds in the tech industry at Universities via our Wise Scholarships initiative. This not only provides financial support to our recipients, but offers mentoring and networking opportunities throughout the academic year. With Wise Scholarships, we are encouraging a deeper shift in the tech industry in breaking down financial barriers particularly for those from low-income backgrounds. In 2023 we awarded 7 students with such scholarships across London, Tallinn and Tartu, and wish to grow this next year.

Continuing to reinforce our inclusive culture

This year our Wiser Pulse Survey (employee engagement survey) has seen very high sentiment scores for DEI - coming in the top 5% against the benchmark of global technology companies for inclusion.

Creating safe spaces, peer connectivity and thought leadership is key to driving our inclusive culture forwards. We have 12 Global Wise Communities (Employee Resource Groups) dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace including Queerwise (LGBTQIA+), Black Wisers Network and Wise Women to name a few. We also profile a diverse range of women and non-binary Wisers from all communities across many different internal and external speaker events and communications such as Sally from our Disability Network and Candace from our Black Wiser Community.

Our Wise Women Community and Wise Women in Engineering Community, which are both open to women, trans and non-binary Wisers, hold monthly events to support career growth, networking and skills development. This year they hosted demo workshops, “Show & Tell” sessions and our biggest Women’s Tech Day for over 50 Wise Women Engineers during our bi-annual Mission Days in Tallinn.

We are further investing in our Senior women and non-binary community in particular, including peer networking lunches and hosting industry events such as Control-Alt-Connect and Brunch & Learns for the wider fintech women’s community.

Continuing to tackle Wise’s gender pay gap

The data below looks at our UK Gender Pay Gap as of the 5th April 2023 snapshot date. Our next steps for 2024 is to define the parameters by which we report our Gender Pay globally.

On 5th April 2023, Wise had 990 people working in its London office. 38% of the London team were women, 62% were men. The proportion of women to men since 2022 has increased by 2 percentage points.

If we were to split our population into technical teams (Product, Engineering and Analytics) and non-technical teams (Servicing, Operations, Core Functions) we are able to identify the key driver of our Gender Pay Gap. Our non-technical teams are relatively evenly balanced at 55% female to 45% male, however as is prevalent in the rest of the technology sector, there is a higher proportion of males to females at 76% to 24% in our technical teams. These roles tend to pay higher salaries, which largely explains our Gender Pay Gap. Thus, focusing on improving our pipeline of female talent in these areas will be key to closing the gap.

• To calculate the 2023 Gender Pay Gap, we have taken the Government’s prescribed requirement for using the snapshot data belonging to the previous financial year, on the payroll date of 5th April 2022

To calculate this data, we have used the legal and binary form of gender for team members. We plan to report on the basis of employees’ gender identity once our minimum thresholds for reporting are met.

Our mean hourly pay gap has decreased by 0.9 percentage points, and our median hourly pay gap has reduced by almost 2.9 percentage points. While we’re pleased to see the gap narrowing, we continue to work hard in reducing this further.

Are bonuses included in the pay gap?

Stock is offered as a key part of our compensation package. It's a long term incentive and one of the ways employees can benefit from the growth in value of our business. That means all our employees have a share in our mission and a responsibility to make our business a success.

At Wise, we have a transparent stock structure of RSU’s that are set based on a Wiser’s job profile and level. New stock is granted to new joiners, those newly promoted or have changed roles with a different stock level and also to Wisers who have fully vested one or more of their stock grants.

For the Gender Pay Gap calculations, we are required to use the value of equity based on when the tax liability arises for the employee. For stock options (NSOs) which Wise offered between 2011 and 2022, this is when options are exercised. For RSUs, which we have issued since April 2022, it’s when they vest.

The table below provides the values of the NSOs and RSUs that were exercised in the reporting period reported as per the statutory requirements of the Gender Pay Requirements of 2017, but it is important to highlight that it’s an employees' own choice to exercise their stock options, as well as when, and at what price.

• Data for 2023 is taken as of April 2023 payroll, on the 5th April 2023

• Data for 2022 is taken as of April 2022 payroll, on the 5th April 2022

Whilst the data above fulfils our reporting requirements for the Bonus Gap, we feel that calculating the Gender Bonus Gap based on equity granted in the same period is a more accurate reflection of the Gender Bonus Gap at Wise. This is because it shows how much stock has been awarded to the individual, which is a decision that Wise makes, rather than the amount that an individual may choose to exercise or not, which is purely at an employee’s discretion.

We have recently started to move away from granting stock on a 4-year basis to instead granting our stock annually, which in the future will allow us to reflect an even more accurate picture of our bonus gap, since all employees will be eligible to receive new stock on an annual basis. As we have just begun the process of transitioning employees to this new approach, we are continuing to develop this and will monitor the impact on pay gaps for men and women alike.

	Men	Women	Bonus Pay Gap
Mean Stock Grant	45,889	31,575	31%
Median Stock Grant	15,000	12,800	15%

Other benefits offered at Wise which class as bonuses under the UK Gender Pay Gap reporting are: refer a friend to work at Wise (approximately £1200), a £1000 gift alongside our six-week paid sabbatical for employees who serve four years with the firm, and relocation allowances.

What does the gender pay split look like at Wise?

We split everyone in the London office into four equal quartiles from the lowest to the highest paid. This year, we have seen significant increases of female representation in three out of four quartiles, with an additional 9% at the upper middle level and 8% increase at the lower middle level. We’ve also seen a 2% reduction of women in the lowest quartile, with the percentage of men and women in this quartile fairly evenly split. Overall, we are trending towards a strong pipeline for increasing Senior women representation and will continue the focus for increasing the representation of women at the top quartile.

	2023		2022
	Women	Men	Women	Men
Top	25%	75%	26%	74%
Upper middle	29%	71%	20%	80%
Lower middle	45%	55%	35%	65%
Lower	51%	49%	53%	47%

Why do we have a pay gap?

Wise has over 5,000 people across 11 key locations, and since we reported in 2022 our London team has expanded to over 1000 people.

We are acutely aware that a significant proportion of our highest paying roles in the UK still sit within tech-related functions - our Engineering and Product teams - which is driving the gap at the Senior level. Hence our goals focus on increasing the number of Senior women across all functions where we are below 40% representation (Level 8+ or Director and above) and especially for tech-related teams in increasing our internal diverse leadership pipeline at Wise.

The 3 main levers we have to accelerate the pace of change are: hiring, retention and career development.

How are we tackling this?

We’re committed to monitoring and reducing Wise’s gender pay gap and meeting our Women in Finance Charter goal of 40% Senior women leaders by the end of 2025.

Here are a few example initiatives that we’re continuing to deliver in 2024:

1. Widening the recruitment funnel and continuing to headhunt Senior women

• So far we have hired 41% Senior women YTD and continue to expand our current attraction and sourcing strategy for hiring Senior women and those from underrepresented groups, particularly in tech-related roles
• Utilising recruitment partnerships with diversity related organisations, agencies and diverse referral drives, for example women in tech networks, Black Tech Fest and myGWork this year
• Sharing our job vacancies more widely across different talent pools and diverse networks

2. Enhancing our inclusive recruitment process and mitigating any potential biases

• Continue to enhance our inclusive job description templates to help reduce bias in the language and criteria of our roles, with diversity as a key discussion point added to all our hiring manager intake meeting templates
• Further embedding our inclusive hiring principles within our interview training for all hiring managers and embedding bias mitigation techniques at each recruitment stage
• Running monthly DEI sessions for the whole recruitment team on a range of DEI related topics. Ensuring a range of attraction strategies are implemented to increase Senior women and diversity in all its forms in our candidate pipelines.

3. Developing our internal diverse leadership pipeline, including women future leaders

• Continuing to ensure the representation of women and those from other underrepresented groups feature in all our functional succession planning and talent management processes
• Ensuring the representation of women and those from other underrepresented groups feature in all our Leads training programmes and leadership initiatives
• Sustaining the retention of our Senior women through tailored career development opportunities, sponsorship and executive coaching opportunities, depending on individual needs and ambitions
• Increasing leadership accountability in all management levels with our OKR plans per function - particularly where we see an underrepresentation of women in leadership, i.e. across Engineering, Product & Finance teams

Developing our Wisers competencies for diversity, equity and inclusion

We’ve been much more deliberate with our DEI training program this year. We have mandatory DEI training for all employees and Leads, to ensure increased awareness and guidance on DEI as well as our zero-tolerance against any form of discrimination and harassment.

We have been embedding DEI into many of our existing learning programs so that Wisers, including Leads, can develop their DEI competencies in the workplace. Next year we are introducing monthly DEI sessions for everyone, on a variety of stand-alone DEI topics so that Wisers can develop their DEI knowledge, experience and skills in collaborating or leading such diverse and inclusive teams.

This year our Wiser Pulse Survey (employee engagement survey) has seen very high sentiment scores for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion- we are in fact in the top 5% against the benchmark of global Tech companies for Inclusion.

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FAQS:

What is the gender pay gap?
The gender pay gap is the difference in average hourly earnings between men and women working within the same organisation. It shows us how women and men are being paid across teams and helps us understand the representation of women in senior roles, and in the highest paid areas of the business such as Product and Engineering.

Companies with more than 250 employees in the UK have to report their Gender Pay Gap figures annually on the 5 April, as a snapshot of the previous year’s data. The report has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2022.

How is the gender pay gap different from equal pay?
The 1970 Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay people doing the same job differently based on gender, a ruling which has since expanded to cover other protected characteristics. Wise is fully compliant with the Equal Pay Act. The gender pay gap, however, is a broader overview of the salaries and benefits earned by men and women within Wise, regardless of their role or seniority.

What sort of stock does Wise offer employees?
Up until 2022, Wise typically granted Non-qualified stock options (NSOs) to its employees. In the UK, Wise originally offered employees share options via the EMI or CSOP schemes, which are employee tax advantage schemes designed for smaller companies.

Since April 2022, all new stock grants at Wise are offered as Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).

RSUs and NSOs are part of a company's bonus structure as defined by the UK Government, so any stock options sold from this scheme are included in the bonus numbers below. Options sold by people holding EMI and CSOP options are not included.

What are NSOs?
NSOs are Non-Qualified stock options.They are a type of employee stock option where you pay ordinary income tax on the difference between the grant price and the price at which you exercise.

What is the EMI?
The Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) is a tax-advantaged share option scheme designed for smaller companies. The EMI is a share option scheme that enables companies to attract and retain key staff by rewarding them with equity participation in the business.

What is a CSOP?
The CSOP is a tax qualified discretionary option plan under which a company may grant options to any employee to acquire shares at an exercise price which must be no less than the market value of the shares on the grant date.