Bank behind New York’s famed ‘Fearless Girl’ statue gored over gender pay discrepancies
US asset manager State Street Corp, famed for installing the ‘Fearless Girl’ statue on Wall Street, opposite an intimidating ‘Charging Bull’ bronze counterpart, has been forced to settle an ironic gender pay dispute.
Bank behind New York’s famed ‘Fearless Girl’ statue gored over gender pay discrepancies
The bank has agreed to pay out $5m to over 300 women following an audit conducted by the US department of Labor which is believed to have unearthed discrepancies in the remuneration between male and female senior leadership, stretching back to December 2010 and possibly beyond.
In a statement given to Bloomberg the bank said: “State Street is committed to equal pay practices and evaluates on an ongoing basis our internal processes to be sure our compensation, hiring and promotions programs are nondiscriminatory.”
The gender pay dispute comes as an embarrassment for State Street which has been vocal in calling for other companies to add more women to their boards, voting against the re-election of the chair or senior member at 400 firms with male-only boards.
State Street has also launched its own gender diversity exchange-traded fund which seeks to target money at businesses with the greatest gender equality within their senior management.
Fearless Girl was masterminded by McCann New York to encourage companies to promote female leadership, generating an estimated $7.3m in free advertising.