15 November, 2022
#24 Portret van een vrouw in de financiële sector: Liesbeth Dewyn
I always try to work constructively, stay positive and move on. I don’t dwell on things that don’t work, I focus on what does. Giving up is not an option for me. The sun always rises again.
Can you explain your role in the organisation?
Well, I find it difficult to succinctly introduce my role because it’s very diverse. I’m Febelfin’s Head of Marketing, but I’m not a traditional marketeer. Although Febelfin doesn’t have any commercial interests, I try to position Febelfin in the market as the financial sector federation. A federation that defends and translates the interests of its members. We try to communicate Febelfin’s strategic pillars to the public in an simple way.
We organise various projects and develop several initiatives on financial education, projects on digital inclusion, awareness raising on cyber security, sustainability… With Febelfin, we are always trying to innovate, not only by developing several new projects but also by other ways of communicating. For example, we recently started making TikToks on finance (e.g. cybersecurity or everything about money that people don’t learn at school ). We try to reach young people by communicating through channels they use. In less than a week one of our Tiktoks has reached more than 700 000 views. My role is to coordinate, analyse and create new initiatives and campaigns, to create new content and keep an eye on the schedule and budget.
How did you end up in this job? What brought you to finance?
It actually happened more by chance, I had no experience in finance beforehand. But coming into contact with the financial sector greatly increased my interest in banking and finance in general and broadened my outlook. Finance proves to be very challenging and fascinating because it touches on many social topics. You don’t necessarily need to have a degree in finance or background to work in the financial world. I studied political sciences and worked as a parliamentary employee for 10 years. The switch for me came through a combination of circumstances: my ex-boss retired, and I am someone who likes to move forward quickly. I like to see concrete results from my work, and in politics there is a lot of debate before creating. I saw a vacancy at Febelfin and what appealed to me, was the diverse range of tasks and opportunities to grow. For me, growth is about much more than getting a senior position and leading a team. Growth is about being able to develop to my full potential. I feel that my job truly allows me to grow and it stimulates my creativity and analytical skills.
I have grown into a position where I can really develop projects. In this role, I can actually turn all the ideas in my head into projects and the projects into results. Besides, I’m not trapped in one role. An example of what we are doing, is a series of projects on digital inclusion through which we want to help work on citizens’ digital skills.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
As mentioned, I enjoy working independently, seeing concrete results from my work and being able to fully develop as a person. What I also find valuable in my job is that we work with themes that are actually relevant for society (sustainability, financial education, digital inclusion, cyber security awareness, … ).
What have you learned recently regarding gender equality?
In collaboration with and for Wo.Men in finance Belgium, a colleague and I developed two sites: inclusioninfinance.be and inclusivepanels.be. Together we also launched the campaign Inclusion in Finance. For me, this was one of the first times I really dived deeper into the world of diversity and inclusion and there were definitely some eye-openers. One was, for example, that there are different types of micro-aggressions in a work environment and that even if there are no bad intentions, you can still hurt or abuse another colleague through certain behaviour.
What was one of the decisions that had the most impact on you or your career? What would you tell your younger self?
A few years ago, a very dramatic event happened in my personal life which brought my life to a standstill at that time. Instead of letting something like that break me, I always try to work constructively, listen to other points of view, stay positive and move on. I don’t dwell on things that don’t work or that get me down, but I focus on what does work. Giving up is not an option for me. The sun always rises again.
Interviewed by: Anna Maria Francken
