Diversity test failure pt II: Broader recruitment policies and support from the top

By Tanvi Gupta & Sayed Kadiri

In part two of Creditflux's series on black people working in the CLO industry we look at how the commitment to diversity needs to come from the top of each organisation and how statements supporting the black lives matter movement are worthless unless company leaders act on their words.

Previous report: Diversity test failure part I

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For a firm to create a diverse workforce, the focus on diversity must come from senior management. “It can’t be a special project, it has to be ingrained in the company culture,” says Levoyd Robinson, partner at CLO manager CFI Partners in Chicago. He is against the idea of hiring a diversity officer, as their work can become a box-ticking exercise. Instead, he says, if the commitment to racial equality comes from the chief executive and others at the C-suite level then it can permeate throughout an organisation.

Kentay Miller
Kentay Miller
Kentay Miller, a managing director and structured finance compliance officer at MJX Asset Management, says that companies should tackle racism, racial hiring and promotion disparities by first reaching out to people of colour among their employees to get a grasp of how they feel in their work environment. This, he says, would expose a lot of difficulties that employees come up against.

New York-based Miller also believes executive teams themselves must become diverse. “It’s good for entry-level employees to see a diverse management team. It encourages employee retention and promotion from within, which makes the company more attractive to top talent,” he says. “Throughout my career, it has been important that I use my full name Kentay… for me, it is important that other people of colour see my name and know that I am indeed black and have worked hard to get to where I am in my industry.”

Recruitment policies must change

The next step is to improve recruitment policies. “Companies should create outreach programmes to recruit highly-skilled candidates from HBCUs [historically black colleges and universities],” says Miller. “People of colour often don’t apply because the industry lacks diversity and they aren’t confident that their experiences will be positive. Companies can also start making concerted efforts to find African American candidates for their internship programmes.”

CFI is one of the leaders in this regard. The CLO manager ensures 75% of interns are from minority groups. It has an alliance with Washington DC’s Howard University, one of the most prominent HBCUs in the US, where Robinson is on the board of visitors. Such has been the success of the partnership, he says, that the university is working with CFI to create a tailored investment management curriculum.

The recruitment partnership has drawn admiration. “We’ve had some of our peers ask us about the partnership and had institutions such as the Texas Teachers Retirement System visit the university to get a close up look at how it operates,” says Robinson.

Getting talent in the door is the first step. The second is nurturing that talent. CFI sees mentoring as imperative, and it implements many of the same practices that First Chicago championed more than 30 years ago.

Levoyd Robinson
Levoyd Robinson
Being brave enough to talk about racism in the industry is also vital, says Miller. “I often attend career days at majority-minority middle and high schools, encouraging students to work hard so they can achieve success,” he says. “However, the past few weeks have made me realise that I’ve done a disservice to them by not discussing the taboo subject of racism and the racial disparities in the financial industry. I will do this going forward.”

Since the black lives matter movement has gained momentum many large corporations have expressed their support. But few have outlined steps they will take to ensure systemic racism is stamped out. “We see a lot of press releases where company heads denounce racism, but these mean nothing. What are they doing to drive change?” asks Robinson.

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TAGS: Europe People CLO MJX CFI North America