Diversity from the Corporate Perspective
Yee, Parcella, Chiames, Hymes
Leaders from different industries who have successfully increased diversity present the key initiatives and activities they undertook to achieve change.
Presentations were be followed by an interactive dialogue about implementation and best practices.
- Betty Yee, Controller, State of California (Moderator)
- Gabriela Parcella, Chairman, President & CEO, Mellon Capital
- Paul Chiames, Director of Human Resources and Development, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- Victor Hymes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, Legato Capital Management
Gabriela Parcella
3 types of gender investing
Women are typically not climbing a corporate ladder. It is not straight up but more like a jungle gym, with a variety of experiences often being a plus. Parcella reported that Mellon Capital now has 60% women in the C-suite. Return on Equality report. Influence your company culture. Make diverse hires. Invite diverse peer/employees to meetings. Focus on maternity leave. Remember: We are not all alike… and that is a good thing. Interviewers must be diverse. Bias against accents – not sure how to address. Look at multiplier effect of freeing up women’s time.
Paul Chiames
Paul Chiames noted that job descriptions are frequently too male oriented. Check out your office décor. Does it emphasize male dominated sports or other activities? Fast bain thinking dominates. All decisions emotional. Bias is an error in decision-making. Need to engage our slow brain. No “bias blaming” appeal to the pre-frontal cortex, Mapping efforts to metrics. Success breeds success.
Startup diversity hard. Est core values easier. Managing harder. Creating supportive environment easier. Institutionalization harder. Can create a job tailored to individual. Promity, instantaneous course correction. Fairness not sameness. Go beyond % of people to how long they have been there and what proportion of the money they earn. Expand on what works. Prepare a diversity model portfolio if we were to achieve the vision. Celebrate successes.
Corporate Boards – Change In the Boardroom and From the Boardroom
Great strides have been made to promote diversity on corporate boards but there is still much work to be done.
- John Chiang, Treasurer, State of California (Moderator)
- Anne Simpson, Investment Director – Sustainability, CalPERS
- Ginger Lew, Managing Director, Cube Hydro Partners
- Helena Morrissey, Head of Personal Investing, Legal & General Investment Management
Proxy access. Boards sitting on the hands. Turnover decreasing. Weak regime of shareholder rights. What skills and experience needed for long-term strategy. An dimesion added adds value. Julia Dawson from Credit Suisse. 3D addressed pool but companies still sat on hands. Technology, international and female most frequent search words for 3D database. Group
Need to work on cultural dynamics. Forcing doesn’t work. Ask for a census, demographic characteristics of fund managers and portfolio companies
Comply or explain contributed to reducing director tenure in UK. 10 year. Most of work has shifted from board to pipeline or ecosystem.
CIO to CIO – A Look at Changing the Investment Landscape from the Asset Owner Perspective
Leaders from the two largest pension plans in the United States discuss their efforts to encourage greater diversity and inclusion both within their own organizations and the companies they invest within.
Panel
- Danielle Gray, Partner, O’Melveny & Myers (Moderator) benchmarking
- Theodore Eliopoulos, Chief Investment Officer, CalPERS
5 year emerging manager focus. Grow them over the long-term. Created middle transition program to have a place to grow emerging over time. Diversity inclusion steering committee in investment office. Did not have the diversity that reflected beliefs and institution. Diverse hiring panel. Discussed with recruiters. Established strategic partnerships with AIM, NAA, CFA, 100Women. 3-5 people assigned to each. 70 volunteered. Collected data on diversity at portfolio manager firms they are doing business with. Great power in measuring. Teaming up, learning together.
- Christopher Ailman, Chief Investment Officer, CalSTRS
Divided strategy by firm size, asset class. 50% women. 45% women portfolio managers. 60% executives. Student internships. Mentoring program. Looking at standardizing surveys with other funds. Talking within US and globally. GroupThink is a problem. Too many from East Coast schools.
How Mentorship Creates Success for Everyone
- Marcie Frost, Chief Executive Officer, CalPERS (Moderator)
- Verdun Perry, Senior Managing Director & Co-Head, Strategic Partners Fund Solutions, Blackstone
Mentorship is mostly about sponsorship. Having my back. Personal story dealth in family. Differences weren’t an impediment. Learned diplomacy, statesmanship. Stephen covers his blind spot. Encourage everyone to speak up and be heard. Personal challenges impact work. Investment Committee – if one member is against, they don’t do it.
Stephen Can, Founder & Co-Head, Strategic Partners Fund Solutions, Blackstone (Mentor)
Formal and informal mentoring. Apprentiship first few years. You can’t sponsor everyone. Gove him some great assignments (compliance… fun).
Recruiting, Retaining, & Promoting a Diverse Workforce
This panel will discuss how to grow the pipeline of diverse talent from entry level to the senior management. Introduction by Yvonne Walker, President, SEIU Local 1000
Billy Dexter, Partner, Heidrick & Struggles (Moderator)
John Bowman, Managing Director – Americas, CFA Institute. Started with an awareness campaign. Loosing women early on… lack of role models. Tend to be more value driven. Trying to reach into university. Hire the competencies, not experience. Millenials much more cost conscious. Disruptive storm with tech solutions. Fiduciary battle.
Julianne Haskell, Managing Director Global D&I , State Street Corporation. Going out and talking to people about State Street. Requiring diverse slates for interviews. Unconscious bias training. Conversations around what can be, since fearless girl. Employees involved in mentorships. Epic fails come when diversity mandated.
Dorothy Leland, (older) Chancellor, University of California – Merced
Susan Reid (black), Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Morgan Stanley The more clients push, the more diverse we’ll get. When the CEO says it, it gets done. Lead by example. Clear the path. Look beyond Finance majors. Exercise looking at top talent in women or minorities.
Keynote: Call to Action
Introductions by Rob Feckner, Board President, CalPERS
- John Thompson, Chair, Microsoft
Went to historically black university. Got a job with IBM. Spoke about how customer didn’t want him back, so boss kicked him upstairs selling to existing accounts, not new accounts. CEO of Symantec for years. Anecdote about Jesie Jackson holding diversity conference for Silicon Valley and him getting the CEO spot at Syantec two days later. Story about not wanting to be poster Black leader for Silicon Valley. Risk, reputational risk for lack of progress or programs. Ask about programs and plans as owners. What are they doing to build the pipeline to get diverse candidates into senior positions. Need to push on schools to do better. Microsoft has program supporting educational development around the world. IBM expected diverse slate of candidates likely to move up.
Anne Sheehan, Director of Corporate Governance, CalSTRS (Interviewer)
Closing Remarks – Voices of Future Leaders
Watch, listen, and learn how future finance and business leaders experience and expect diversity in the work place.
Introductions by Dana Dillon, Board Chair, CalSTRS
- Video Montage: Girls Who Invest/Toigo/SEO Fellow
The post California Diversity Forum 2017: Part 2 appeared first on Corporate Governance.
May 12, 2017 at 07:00AM
from James McRitchie
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