While it was disappointing not to be able to meet all of our shortlisted candidates in person at a champagne reception and awards evening, it has been a humbling and encouraging process to read though all the case studies submitted by financial services companies and individuals.
Every winner, highly-commended runner up and shortlisted candidate and company encouraged the judges by their dedication to championing various and, in some cases, multiple causes to improve diversity and inclusion in their workplaces, the overall organisation and their local community.
But, as our guest speaker and fellow panellists explained in our online awards webinar on September 2, more needs to be done across financial services to make the industry truly reflective of the society it serves.
Ms Sheila Ochugboju, international development specialist and founder of media consultancy Africa Knows, was the keynote speaker at the DIFA 2020.
She said: “It’s important to recognise that today, in 2020, there are still many bridges to cross – and we must cross them. We have a duty to future generations who are looking to us to provide better foundations for them to build on.”
Ms Ochugboju said the FTAdviser DIFAs were important in showcasing the “power of finance” to transform lives, explaining how a more tech-based, entrepreneurial spirit among financial providers was helping to democratise savings and empowerment in some of the most impoverished countries in the world, and this spirit could be brought to bear in the UK to make sure nobody was left behind.
She said: “In the work that I’ve been doing in sub-Saharan Africa, I’ve recognised the extraordinary capacity of innovative financial solutions such as fintech, impact investing and new digital platforms, to open doors for those historically excluded from financial systems.
“They can create new opportunities for young entrepreneurs to do more than they could ever imagine. Finance is really a critical catalyst for change; financial industries empower societies in so many ways, from raising individual capacities and self-esteem, to connecting hard-to-reach communities to the world.”
How finance can continue this work
Ms Ochugboju said it was imperative that companies continued to improve support of female-led businesses better in the post-Covid recovery period, especially as the World Economic Forum has forecast that women will fall “first in the crater of lost incomes, wealth and opportunities”.
Quoting the Foreign Policy Analytics 2020 report, Women as Levers of Change, she added companies that improved gender diversity not only improved their governance and performance metrics but also their environmental credentials.
She explained: “Companies with greater gender diversity on boards were found to have better environmental performance, because mission-driven women hold companies to account on their green credentials, and help them respond to regulatory pressure and societal backlash against pollution by advancing greener production processes and innovating environmentally sustainable alternatives.”
So companies such as Morningstar UK, which won the Championing Gender Diversity award this year, are doing their bit to improve representation at board level, reduce the gender pay gap and make a difference in society.
According to Keith Richards, chief executive of the Personal Finance Society, who sat on the panel alongside Ms Ochugboju and Dominic Grinstead, managing director of MetLife, it makes a huge difference to the whole financial services profession for companies to champion this issue.
Mr Richards commented: “Morningstar should be praised for taking steps to improve the diversity of our profession. Its Women’s Initiative, as well as their other two diversity groups, Men as Allies and Out@Morningstar are ones to watch.”
Racial wealth gap
But it is not just gender or age that needs to be factored in. Ms Ochugboju said: “We need better, more transparent data across all sectors to begin tackling systemic racial inequality and injustice.
“The recent unrest following the [killing] of George Floyd [in the US] reminds us that we need wide-scale systems change to truly challenge racial inequality. Individual actions, whether positive or negative, are supported by systems that allow them to thrive.”
She pointed to the use of better data, and better ways of analysing data, to understand diversity and workforce practices, and to use this to identify areas for change and growth.
The Financial Conduct Authority, which won this year’s Championing Race Equality award, was an example of this: one of its staff members identified areas for change and growth and set out to remedy this.
Junior Imode, the brains behind the FCA’s work on improving race equality, is a technology specialist who works at the regulator as a principal cloud engineer.
He noted that colleagues did not all perceive the importance of diversity and inclusion, and spotted a gap where the pre-conceived notions about diversity could be discussed, analysed and overcome.
Mr Richards said: “Mr Imode should be applauded for his outstanding leadership of the Inclusion, Diversity and Equality Advocates group, which is helping the FCA on their journey towards becoming a more inclusive workplace.”
By having open conversations about homophobia and race in the workplace, analysing pay data along both gender and racial lines, and re-examining policies on hiring, disability and inclusiveness, companies can start to make a significant difference, the panel said.
Changing their practices to improve those areas where gaps and issues have been identified is a step in the right direction; a direction that leads to better social justice in the world around them, how they treat customers, and how they reach out to young people in their communities to bring them into the financial services profession.
These conversations need to keep happening, according to Ms Ochugboju. She added that she had been working for the UN on Nelson Mandela Day (July 18). She heard António Guterres, secretary general, giving a “hard-hitting speech about the pandemic of inequality that we have ignored for too long”.
She quotes him as saying: “Covid-19 has been likened to an x-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built. It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all; the fiction that unpaid care work is not work; the delusion we live in a post-racist world; the myth that we are all in the same boat.
“Because while we are all floating on the same sea, it’s clear that some are in super yachts while others are clinging to drifting debris.”
Congratulations once again to our worthy winners, and a big thank you to all those who submitted entries, to all our panel of speakers, to our judges for their time and dedication, and to all the unsung diversity heroes in financial services.
Here’s to next year’s awards, and to an even tougher judging process.
You can watch the full event video here. You will need to register for the event in order to view it.
Email: simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
