Gender and Leadership in the Financial Sector

This book examines men in powerful positions who question relations of power and domination from within. Through an intersectional lens, it illustrates how gender, class, and other dimensions of domination intertwine, and what emancipatory critique can emerge from such privileged positions.

Drawing on interviews with twenty-three current and former male executives from the Swiss financial sector alongside autobiographical accounts, the study analyses patterns of what the author terms ‘emancipatory eutopian critique’ – focusing less on critique as heroic opposition and more on transformations toward caring relationships. From fathers abandoning lucrative careers to care for children, to executives embracing ‘feminine’ leadership, these narratives illuminate ‘eutopian transformations’, showing how an orientation toward caring relations to the self and others in the present can create more dialogical and caring futures. The analysis demonstrates how privilege can become a site of resistance and offers theoretical tools, including ‘gender as mosaic’.

Aimed at scholars, policy-makers, practitioners and students interested in links between men, masculinities, organisations and social transformation, this book is an invaluable resource for those working in and beyond such fields as gender studies, critical studies on men and masculinities, organisation and leadership studies, political science, sociology, social and public policy, and social movement studies.