Turks and Women in Banking and Finance (WiBF) are delighted to announce Christina Cardarello, Senior Manager Retail Change and Communications at Bank of Queensland as the winner of the 2021 Turks WiBF Leadership Scholarship.

Turks and Women in Banking & Finance (WiBF) are strong advocates for excellence in the Australian banking and finance industry. Now in its eighth year, the 2021 Turks WiBF Leadership Scholarship is an exciting joint initiative between Turks and WiBF to provide WiBF members with a significant career development opportunity.

Christina submitted a very articulate and considered response to the question on where the banking and finance sector should be prioritising Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) efforts, and how she would engage with staff and other stakeholders on this subject and impressed the judging panel with her energy and enthusiasm to support gender diversity as an ambassador of WiBF.

As the winner, Christina will participate in the Women in Leadership Program in 2022; a one-week course run by the highly esteemed Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne. The program is designed to develop women with purpose into leaders who have a profound impact in their organisations, communities and wider society.

“We congratulate Christina on being awarded the 2021 Turks WiBF Leadership Scholarship. Christina's written response to the ESG question and the opportunities presented by distributed ledger technologies was incredibly thought-provoking, and her enthusiasm and authenticity at interview saw her triumph on the day. We are confident that Christina will benefit greatly from participating in the Women in Leadership Program and will inspire others at Bank of Queensland and the sector generally. Thank you to all applicants for the time they took to apply and to the finalists for participating in a high-quality interview process. Thank you to the judges and the staff at WiBF and Turks that make the Scholarship as successful and aspirational as it is.”, said David McCrostie, Partner and Practice Group Leader of Turks’ Banking & Finance practice and member of the Scholarship judging panel.

The judges found this year’s Scholarship extremely difficult to judge due to the high quality of the written entries and the impressive performances of the finalists at interview. All of the applicants were inspirational. In the end, the judges agreed that Christina was a stand-out applicant and were truly delighted to see her win.

The 2022 Turks WiBF Leadership Scholarship will open in July 2022.

About Turks

Turks is a leading commercial law firm with 36 partners and over 160 staff in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Newcastle.

For 40 years we have developed our skills and expertise to align with the needs of our clients. Our commitment and unwavering focus has undoubtedly helped us to build the long- standing partnerships we have with many of Australia’s leading institutions, major and boutique insurers, corporate entities and banks.

About Women in Banking and Finance (WiBF)

WiBF is a not-for-profit membership association aimed at increasing the representation of female leaders in the banking and finance sector. WiBF’s corporate members represent major Australian trading banks, investment banks, fund managers, ASX accounting firms and collectively employ over 200,000 individuals.