Gold Magazine February - March 2013, Issue 23 | Page 25

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COVER STORY

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n 2010, IMF Head Christine Lagarde, who was France’s Finance
Minister at the time, quipped
to a journalist that “Ιf Lehman
Brothers had been Lehman
Sisters, today’s economic crisis
clearly would look quite different”. Many people, and not only
women, agreed with her view,
as stated subsequently in a New
York Times article, that “When
women are called to action in
times of turbulence, it is often on account of
their composure, sense of responsibility and
great pragmatism in delicate situations”.
Lagarde is, of course, something of a highprofile exception and she admits that “It took
some luck and a lot of willpower for me to
reach the position I hold today” but the fact is
that, across the Western world at least, traditionally male-dominated professions have seen
a shift in culture and recruitment policies that
have enabled talented and qualified women to
work side by side with their male counterparts
as equals…well, almost. The ideal of equal pay
is still some way off in many sectors but there
can be no doubt that, in recent decades, more
oppor
and more women have been given the opportunities they deserve to rise through the ranks
to the very top of their profession.
Given the entrenched and often chauvinistic
coun
views of many men in Cyprus and the country’s small size, one might reasonably expect
successful women professionals to be a small
minority. The truth is pleasantly different,
especially in the thriving professional services
sector, as evidenced by the responses of the
50 women featured on the following pages
to three questions posed by Gold. While the
situation varies within the sub-sectors (women
are notably well-represented in law firms), it is
profes
clear that in Cyprus in the 21st century, professional services are no longer the closed man’s
profes
world they once were. Our featured professional women are more or less unanimous in
this view, and they are equally united in the
opinion that while more women are entering
the accountancy, banking, legal, fiduciary and
financial service professions, few of them are
given the chance to rise to the very top. This is
partly to do with choice – when it comes to the
‘career vs family’ dilemma, many women are
mother
understandably unwilling to sacrifice motherdomi
hood – but also with the lingering male dominance of senior posts.
The legal sector appears to be an exception
to the rule: As Maria Kyriacou (Advocate/
Partner, Andreas Neocleous & Co LLC)
points out, there are currently 1,220 registered
women lawyers and 1,331 men, 55 female and
60 male judges in Cyprus. However, while

the figures don’t lie, Emily Yiolitis (Managing
Partner, Harneys Aristodemou Loizides Yiolitis
LLC) notes that women are still under-represented in the top echelons of law firms.
Elsewhere, women continue to be a minority: Maria Dionyssiades (General Manager/
Executive Director, Emporiki Bank Cyprus
Ltd, Credit Agricole Group) points out that
“The proportion of female employees in the
banking sector in Cyprus is significant but the
top management positions are almost exclusively male-dominated” while Olga Rybalkina
(Chief Executive Officer, ForexTime Ltd)
states clearly that she is “not aware of another
woman running a business like this”.
Another widely-held view to emerge from
the responses to our questions is that while
women have their own special qualities and a
different approach to business from men, F