F.IN.A Connect: networking community for women in finance, minus the agenda

F.IN.A (Females in Accounting) Connect is a networking community built for women in finance.

Born from the belief that networking is at its best in real life, F.IN.A began with relaxed, in-person events - no panel, no speaker at the front, no formal Q&A. We've walked around lakes, made Christmas wreaths and met over coffee (or prosecco!), and we're now adding online sessions alongside them.

Whatever the format, the point stays the same: honest conversation about ambition, leadership and progression, and real support for women building influence in a profession where they remain underrepresented at the top.

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No hidden agenda

Women who can relate

Conversations that matter

We Understand Your Challenge

Women enter accounting in strong numbers, yet representation falls away at senior leadership and partner level - and motherhood can’t take all the blame. This isn’t about talent or ambition, but unequal access to the visibility, sponsorship and influential networks that support senior progression.

As careers advance, structured support often falls away just as the challenges get more complex, decisions carry greater weight, and fewer people nearby can genuinely relate. Talented women can find themselves navigating senior leadership without the network their ambitions deserve.

Traditional senior finance networks are often built around long-established formats with golf days the obvious example – they have their place, but women haven’t always felt equally included. (Spoiler alert: a F.IN.A golf day may be on the horizon. If you can’t beat them, join them… but we’ll do it our way, empowering more women to step onto the course, literally and figuratively!)

Seven women holding handmade Christmas wreaths decorated with foliage, dried oranges, pine cones and ribbons at a F.IN.A Connect wreath-making event.

Why Join?

Peers, not an audience

Everyone in the room is at a similar level, dealing with similar things. That means you can say "this is what I'm going through" and hear "same here" back. It's a forum, not a stage. Kerry runs it and then gets out of the way.

Conversations that go somewhere

Because nobody sets the topic, the group goes where it needs to. On a recent lake walk the conversation turned to AI - what people were actually using it for, how they were building dashboards, what was safe to put into it. One member was further ahead than the rest, so she shared what she'd built. Everyone else took it back to their own team. That's the pattern.

Mentoring that happens on its own

Our first event was drinks and food in the summer. Several people carried on talking in the WhatsApp group afterwards, then linked up outside of F.IN.A entirely and ended up mentoring each other. Different career stages, no matchmaking, no programme. Just people who met properly and stayed in touch.

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What You Can Expect

Very little structure

No agenda, no slides, no reading material. Turn up and talk.

Something light to do

Lunch, a walk, a wreath-making session. Enough going on that nobody has to work at it.

The topics that don't get aired elsewhere

Pay, progression and being heard. Menopause and health at senior level. The conversations that are hard to raise in a bigger room.

A group that keeps going

The WhatsApp group runs between events. Most of the useful follow-up happens there.

Who Is This For?

Senior women in finance and accounting. Finance directors, financial controllers, heads of finance, and finance managers heading that way.

If you're past the training stage and the networking around you has thinned out, this is aimed at you. If you're the only woman in your finance team, or the only finance person in your business, more so.

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A group of women networking over drinks at Bar and Kitchen Silverstone, seated in curved lounge chairs around a low table.

Come to the next one

Groups are kept deliberately small so everyone actually gets to talk. Sessions have been in person across the East Midlands so far, with online sessions starting now so the group stays reachable as it grows.

Members describe it three ways: supportive, valuable, different.

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