DuPont, the US chemicals group, spent six years driving Six Sigma, the management excellence techniques, through the company. Then, in 2006, it launched its own productivity initiative—the DuPont Production System (DPS). The system uses process tools and techniques for changing mindsets and behaviours to implement comprehensive production improvements throughout its operations.

As CEOs go, Siki Giunta is one of a kind. An Italian woman who can speak four languages and has a background in the arts and humanities, she has presided over the transformation of US software company Managed Objects from a start-up with eight employees to a global business with 150 employees and revenues of US$30m.

When Perween Warsi set up S&A Foods in 1986, she was 30 years old and had two sons aged eight and 10.

ICICI Bank is India’s second largest and fastest-growing bank and perhaps the country’s best example of how to assimilate women throughout an organisation.

KV Kamath, the company’s (male) Managing Director and Chief Executive, has made it company policy to encourage the recruitment and development of women and, as a result, females hold about a dozen of the top 40 management posts, two out of five executive board seats, run two out of five subsidiaries, and account for about 30 per cent of total staff.

Few entrepreneurs in the UK have been as successful as Emma Harrison at combining the goal of making a difference to people’s lives with achieving financial success.

Not all senior finance executives are paying down debt or putting plans for balance sheet restructuring on hold. Indeed, only around four in ten executives questioned for our survey say that they plan to cut back debt in response to the credit crisis. For those that do not plan to pay down debt, some are continuing with existing plans to invest capital or return cash to shareholders. In many cases, these are companies with solid balance sheets and strong cash flow generation.

In recent years, the Polish economy has been expanding strongly, with more and more families having money to spend and save, providing significant demand for financial services. As a result, firms such as BRE Bank are responding with new ideas. In 2001, it launched MultiBank, an up-market institution aimed at the country’s rising middle class.

In 2003, a reversal of fortunes on the high street coupled with a very public private equity approach prompted UK retailer WH Smith to take a serious look at its pension strategy. With earnings down and despite the failure of a debt-laden buyout approach in early 2004, the board suddenly became extremely uncomfortable about the deficit in its defined benefit scheme, then running at about £152m.

Pensions, health benefits and child support are just a few examples of the long list of payments that governments make to their citizens, and yet many of the recipients have no bank account into which to deposit them, particularly in less developed countries. “The numbers are huge,” says Elizabeth Littlefield of CGaP. She estimates that only 25 per cent of the recipients of these G2P (government-to-people) payments have a bank account into which to deposit them.

As new technologies and payment innovations advance, the regulatory frameworks that are needed to guarantee their fair and legal operation cannot always adapt quickly enough. This creates new obstacles to financial inclusion. After all, the merchant in a small kiosk who, instead of selling only batteries, cigarettes and phone airtime, is now taking in and handing out money via customers’ mobile phones, has essentially become a bank teller.