Monique French, Chief Credit Officer at CIBC FirstCaribbean is the winner of 2021 We Qual Award. She aced 24 female executives of some of the biggest companies in the Americas identified as having the leadership traits for top-level executive management positions. She was one of three finalists in the Finance category in this year’s award, a first for the Caribbean.
The WeQual Awards (wequal.com/awards) recognized outstanding women in senior roles. With a mission to tackle the slow progress in appointing women to executive positions, the organization aims to make businesses more inclusive by identifying exceptional women executives and address the gender imbalance across the world’s executive committees. Katie Litchfield, Founder, and CEO of WeQual Awards devised the new platform which calls for women senior executives to build their case as to why they deserve to be appointed to the executive committee.
Nigel Holness, Managing Director of CIBC FirstCaribbean congratulated Ms. French “on her achievements in advancing the contribution and recognition of women in finance as well as women in Jamaica and across the Caribbean.”
Ms. French has extensive experience in the Financial Services Industry including leadership positions in Credit & Investments, Risk Management, Treasury, Sales & Trading, Reporting & Analytics. An executive with a depth of expertise in the treasury, retail, small business, corporate, sovereign, and private banking segments, she is presently the group-wide Chief Credit Officer for the CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank across all the territories in which the FirstCaribbean Group operates.
Ms. French has served on various for-profit, community, non-profit, industry, and economic committees and boards and currently serves as a Director and the Governance Committee Chair of CFA Society Jamaica (industry association). Monique earned the CFA Charter in 2000, in addition to holding a BSc Accounting degree with First Class Honors from The University of the West Indies (Mona, Jamaica) & an MBA from The University of Western Ontario (London, Canada), completing the Canadian Securities Course (CSC) and Financial Risk Manager (FRM) Designation.
In addition to CIBC FirstCaribbean, the Americas finalists were from a wide range of sectors and companies, including ABB Ltd, Analog Devices, AstraZeneca, BlackRock, Capital One, CGI, Comcast, Diageo, FIS, HSBC, IBM, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Marriott International, Morgan Stanley, Prologis, ServiceNow, SiriusXM, TELUS, Kellogg Company, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo. They were all assessed against specific criteria: Leadership, Cognitive Ability, Drive & Resilience, Integrity, Emotional Intelligence, Personal Development, Approach to Equality, and Knowledge of the Business. All candidates were assessed blind with no name or company revealed in their application.
