The Diversity Project: the next five years
The coronavirus crisis has shaken up both mindsets and working practices in the investment and savings industry, disrupting practices and behaviours that might otherwise have been hard to change. The Diversity Project will leverage this shift to create faster progress over the next five years.
Its original mission – to create a new generation of diverse talent and an inclusive culture across our member firms – remains firmly in place, though with a sharper focus on results and more targeted interventions to address industry-specific challenges.
The Diversity Project is announcing new targets around three dimensions of diversity: ethnic minorities, gender and socio-economic backgrounds, focused on increasing representation and participation at all levels of seniority. These are:
Socio Economic Targets
- All member firms to collect socio-economic data for their people, both entry-level and existing, and to track promotions.
- All member firms to support one or more graduate/school leaver recruitment programmes focused on socio-economic diversity.
- At least 80% of interns and graduates to have attended state school for the duration of their secondary education (ages 11-16).
Gender Targets
- 20% female fund managers (up from 14% in large groups and 10% in small groups in 2019 source Citywire*). Targets adopted by individual member firms.
- Gender pay gaps reduced by one third from their 2019 figures.
- 50:50 male: female graduate and school leaver recruitment.
- Equal take up of stocks and shares ISAs by female and male customers.
Ethnicity Targets
- The industry to achieve a 90% ethnicity disclosure rate within two years, to provide a basis for additional targets to be set. A new ‘90%’ campaign is launching soon.
Baroness Helena Morrissey, Chair of the Diversity Project comments:
“This past year, we’ve experienced the biggest shake up imaginable in all aspects of our lives. It’s not the way we wanted to catalyse a step-change, but we are seizing the moment to refocus our efforts to accelerate progress towards a more inclusive culture and greater diversity of talent.”
Dame Anne Richards, CEO of Fidelity International comments:
“The Diversity Project has played a key role in bringing the investment and savings industry together to make real progress on diversity and inclusion. There is now broad agreement on the robust business case for diversity and inclusion because of the huge benefits they bring to our organisations in terms of innovation, better problem solving and more engaged employees who value the stronger sense of fairness. We celebrate our progress, knowing that there is still more to do, and look forward to continuing to work together to create an industry where everyone feels they can succeed and thrive.”
Mitesh Sheth, CEO of Redington comments:
“Over the past 5 years I’ve seen the Diversity Project bring many enthusiastic volunteers and change makers together across the whole industry, to share best practice, conduct new research, create new initiatives and partnerships to improve the diversity and inclusion within each of our firms. My colleagues at Redington and I have really enjoyed working with and learning from such a passionate and action-oriented group of people. We know that despite all our efforts so far, we are only at the beginning of a very long road. We need to continue to work together, embed change and hold each other accountable to really make our industry accessible and attractive for all.”
