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Being Black on Wall Street: A Bloomberg Radio Special · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:02
Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Radio special, Being Black on Wall Street.
0:07
Speaker 1: I'm Shnai Bassk. Over the next hour, we explore what
0:12
Speaker 1: it means to be black in the white world of finance.
0:15
Speaker 1: You know, Wall Street, it's a close society and it's
0:18
Speaker 1: very hard to get in and stay. You were going
0:20
Speaker 1: to have to be comfortable in some cases being the
0:22
Speaker 1: only and being the first. So many of us have
0:25
Speaker 1: gone there with the hopes of achieving success, the setbacks
0:30
Speaker 1: on the stereotypes space within the walls of Wall Street.
0:33
Speaker 1: I said, you've got three strikes against you. You're young,
0:36
Speaker 1: you're a woman, and you're black. And you told me
0:38
Speaker 1: point blank that Boman Sex wouldn't hire me. I wanted
0:42
Speaker 1: to achieve the American dream, and I encountered issues that
0:45
Speaker 1: held me back. And as the calls for change grow louder,
0:49
Speaker 1: what it will take for the industry to finally reform.
0:52
Speaker 1: You know, we've made progress in the law stake, but
0:54
Speaker 1: we're not where we want to be. We're not satisfied.
0:56
Speaker 1: People just saying enough and they're taking a stay. George
1:00
Speaker 1: Floyd when we saw him bird in a public leg
1:03
Speaker 1: you can't un see it. And I think the whole
1:05
Speaker 1: country has woken up to say things have to change.
1:09
Speaker 1: That's all straight ahead on this Bloomberg Radio special. Being
1:12
Speaker 1: black on Wall Street, even after hundreds of years, black executives, traders,
1:21
Speaker 1: and investment bankers on Wall Street are rare. As of June,
1:25
Speaker 1: there were more than eighty executives at the biggest US
1:28
Speaker 1: banks and only one was black. The numbers are similar
1:32
Speaker 1: at the biggest private equity and hedge fund firms, where
1:35
Speaker 1: pay on Wall Street is the highest. Wall Street matters
1:39
Speaker 1: both in the way it hires and the way it
1:40
Speaker 1: picks its clients. Wall Street matters because it's the most
1:44
Speaker 1: prominent vehicle of wealth in this country, and people of
1:48
Speaker 1: color have been left behind in a big way. Black
1:51
Speaker 1: homeownership is a fraction of white homeownership, and many Black
1:55
Speaker 1: communities are left without banking services, and the biggest banks
1:59
Speaker 1: have fallen behind. University efforts. Zannelia Harris has worked all
2:03
Speaker 1: across Wall Street, from Nazdak to City Group, Edward Jones
2:07
Speaker 1: and Panty. In every scenario, she found it hard to
2:11
Speaker 1: build relationships. So many of us have gone there with
2:15
Speaker 1: the hopes of achieving success to the to then be UH,
2:22
Speaker 1: to then deal with UH. The harsh reality of not
2:26
Speaker 1: being able to reach the levels that we've seen our
2:29
Speaker 1: white counterparts reach. And that has been disheartening for me
2:33
Speaker 1: because I wanted to succeed. You know, when I came
2:36
Speaker 1: out of college, my goal was to UM to to
2:41
Speaker 1: achieve the American dream. I wanted to achieve the American dream.
2:44
Speaker 1: And I felt that pursuing an opportunity in the finance
2:48
Speaker 1: UH field would be my ticket to achieving a certain
2:53
Speaker 1: level of success. But I encountered um some issues that
2:57
Speaker 1: held me back. Those issues can take many forms. Sometimes
3:02
Speaker 1: it's being shut out of high level conversations. Sometimes it's
3:06
Speaker 1: clients gravitating towards bankers they know through existing networks. Breaking
3:11
Speaker 1: into finance in any meaningful way can be hard without connections.
3:16
Speaker 1: Lauren Simmons was only the second black woman to become
3:19
Speaker 1: an equity trader at the New York Stock Exchange in
3:22
Speaker 1: the two hundred twenty five year history of the trading floor.
3:26
Speaker 1: That breakthrough happened just three years ago in I, you know,
3:31
Speaker 1: came from Georgia. I decided, you know, I really wanted
3:34
Speaker 1: to live in New York. That's very much a mindset
3:37
Speaker 1: after you graduate New Yorker l A and for me,
3:39
Speaker 1: I was open to opportunity. I end up meeting a
3:42
Speaker 1: gentleman who worked for Golden Sacks. He was African American,
3:46
Speaker 1: and he told me point blank that, you know, Goldman
3:49
Speaker 1: Sacks wouldn't hire me, and he didn't really give me
3:51
Speaker 1: any clarity as to the reason why, UM, but he
3:54
Speaker 1: said that he would UM introduced me to a colleague
3:59
Speaker 1: that worked the New York Stock Exchange and would i'd
4:01
Speaker 1: be interested in equity trading position. And of course, for me,
4:05
Speaker 1: I was thinking, you know, minimumly, this will be a
4:08
Speaker 1: great opportunity to work for the New York Stock Exchange.
4:11
Speaker 1: While Lauren was the second in her field, Reggie Brown
4:15
Speaker 1: was the first. When he joined the New York Stock
4:17
Speaker 1: Exchange in the nineties, he was the first and only
4:21
Speaker 1: black exchange official. For him, it was a challenge rising
4:25
Speaker 1: through the ranks. Historically, the floor businesses were always family run,
4:30
Speaker 1: family based businesses, you know. It was large groups of
4:34
Speaker 1: family members owning the specialist firms or trading firms, and
4:39
Speaker 1: through that you had, you know, windows of opportunity for
4:44
Speaker 1: people to entry into the business, you know, And there
4:48
Speaker 1: were several people like me that that we're able to
4:50
Speaker 1: get in, but Reggie found his way to the top.
4:53
Speaker 1: Now he's known as the godfather of exchange traded funds.
4:57
Speaker 1: He's a principal at one of the largest market make
5:00
Speaker 1: is on the New York Stock Exchange. But to get
5:02
Speaker 1: there he had to overcome overt racism. There was some recognition,
5:07
Speaker 1: I think of my talents, but also where I stood
5:11
Speaker 1: in a hierarchy. You know. I remember when I first
5:14
Speaker 1: came up of the Stock Exchange. I sat in the
5:16
Speaker 1: member's lounge and a ninety year old member of the
5:19
Speaker 1: Exchange I didn't believe I belonged there, and cleared his
5:22
Speaker 1: throat and told me to go, and I showed him, hey,
5:25
Speaker 1: you know, I have a badge too, you know. Moving
5:29
Speaker 1: from Phildelphia to New York and inserted myself into the
5:32
Speaker 1: New York business community, there were interesting moments around just
5:38
Speaker 1: being accepted, people understanding, you know, I'm here and you
5:41
Speaker 1: got to deal with it. People have called me the
5:44
Speaker 1: end word to my face. Um in the workplace. You know,
5:47
Speaker 1: people didn't know I was real for what I do
5:50
Speaker 1: for a living and was challenged and so you are real,
5:54
Speaker 1: you do you actually do what you do, you know,
5:56
Speaker 1: But I think anyone gets that sometimes in your life
5:59
Speaker 1: you Wall Street, you know it's a closed society, and
6:03
Speaker 1: you know it's a meritocracy, and it's very hard to
6:05
Speaker 1: get in and stay in. And once you're in environment
6:09
Speaker 1: sometimes the rough and tumble, it is not very friendly.
6:12
Speaker 1: But is that true for everything else alive? It was
6:15
Speaker 1: a tough journey to the top for the few people
6:18
Speaker 1: of color who made it there. So far, Wall streets
6:21
Speaker 1: efforts to hire black people has fallen short, and the
6:24
Speaker 1: industry has also failed to promote most people of color.
6:28
Speaker 1: It shows in the numbers less than ten percent of
6:31
Speaker 1: middle managers are black. That number falls to less than
6:34
Speaker 1: five percent in the executive ranks. Being the only person
6:40
Speaker 1: of color in the clubby world of finance can be
6:42
Speaker 1: intimidating for anybody, especially a young person right out of college.
6:47
Speaker 1: That's made mentors and advocates more important than ever in
6:51
Speaker 1: a place with a few and far between. So for
6:54
Speaker 1: black people on Wall Street, the search for advocates extends
6:58
Speaker 1: to other industries and rival firms. They found advocates among
7:02
Speaker 1: white colleagues and managers who had vouched for them. Carla
7:05
Speaker 1: Harris joined Morgan Stanley in the eighties. She was one
7:08
Speaker 1: of a handful of people of color at the firm
7:10
Speaker 1: at the time, and often the only one in the room.
7:14
Speaker 1: It didn't intimidate me because that's kind of the way
7:16
Speaker 1: it was at that point. So now that and this
7:18
Speaker 1: is this is an important point because again, if you're
7:22
Speaker 1: growing up in my genre excellence, look like six white
7:27
Speaker 1: men at the top, right, That wasn't strange at all.
7:30
Speaker 1: That's what you saw at IBM, That's what you saw
7:32
Speaker 1: at GM, that's what you saw at Morgan Stanley Golmus
7:35
Speaker 1: actually pick it right. So you knew that if you
7:38
Speaker 1: wanted to play on this playing field, that's was what
7:40
Speaker 1: you were You were going to have to be comfortable
7:42
Speaker 1: in some cases being the only and being the first.
7:46
Speaker 1: So that was not intimidating to me at all. That's
7:49
Speaker 1: just the way it was. You know. I would say
7:51
Speaker 1: I had three strikes against me. Here's what I said
7:53
Speaker 1: to myself as a first year and second year associate.
7:55
Speaker 1: I said, you've got three strikes against you. You're young,
7:58
Speaker 1: you're woman, and your black. Carla recognized the importance of
8:02
Speaker 1: building relationships early on. In her first performance review as
8:06
Speaker 1: an associate, it left her realizing there weren't many managers
8:10
Speaker 1: in her corner. She was also working for someone that
8:13
Speaker 1: didn't see her potential. She had graduated from Harvard twice,
8:18
Speaker 1: both for her bachelor's and then her master's degree. I
8:21
Speaker 1: was working for somebody that was really, really tough, and
8:26
Speaker 1: they instead of affirming me, they always made me feel like,
8:31
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps I didn't learn a lot enough that
8:33
Speaker 1: Harvard Business School. Perhaps I wasn't cut out for this business.
8:36
Speaker 1: So I would say, um, my interactions with this person
8:40
Speaker 1: and I worked on a lot of stuff with this
8:42
Speaker 1: person really under my my own confidence. And it wasn't
8:45
Speaker 1: until I say that my confidence was completely busted. You
8:49
Speaker 1: had said your name is Carla Harris, I would have said,
8:52
Speaker 1: are you sure right? My confidence was that busted that
8:56
Speaker 1: that sort of bottom floor was the actual turning point
9:00
Speaker 1: for me. It was sort of getting as deep as
9:03
Speaker 1: I could in that valley where I started saying, wait
9:05
Speaker 1: a minute, Wait a minute, how why would I doubt
9:08
Speaker 1: that I could do X when my track worker says
9:12
Speaker 1: I've done X, Y and Z. Wait a minute, Is
9:15
Speaker 1: it that I'm not that good? Or is it that
9:17
Speaker 1: that person really can't teach me? So I started looking
9:20
Speaker 1: through a different lens and realized that I had the
9:23
Speaker 1: power to also say no, Moss, I'm not working for
9:28
Speaker 1: this person anymore. Carlo was able to find her own
9:31
Speaker 1: path in the industry. She networked with other associates, found
9:35
Speaker 1: better managers and a mentor, a black woman who rose
9:38
Speaker 1: to the top of a company outside of the financial industry.
9:42
Speaker 1: For Reggie Brown, the climb to the top followed another path.
9:46
Speaker 1: He took pride and ownership of his spot as the
9:48
Speaker 1: only one in the room at the New York Stack Exchange.
9:51
Speaker 1: I've always saw race as an attribute because I realized
9:56
Speaker 1: that a lot of times I was the only one
9:58
Speaker 1: in the room or I stood out because I was
10:01
Speaker 1: six five a black dude, And everyone remarked in that
10:04
Speaker 1: because it was such a unique thing to be an
10:09
Speaker 1: environment that I was in. And so through ambition and
10:12
Speaker 1: talent and drive, I created my opportunities, and there's opportunities
10:18
Speaker 1: were asking, you know, the economy putts along the way.
10:21
Speaker 1: One of the most impactful experiences that I've I've had
10:26
Speaker 1: where I gave a presentation to the Bank of Japan
10:29
Speaker 1: um sitting governors of the Bank on household This was
10:32
Speaker 1: two and a half years ago. Household inclusion of Japanese
10:36
Speaker 1: households into the Japanese stock market and competition and marketplace
10:40
Speaker 1: by introducing ets and what at a risk. And after
10:45
Speaker 1: the presentation, there's about thirty people in the room, so
10:48
Speaker 1: it was it was a private session with three voting
10:51
Speaker 1: members and their staff members. And after the my presentation
10:58
Speaker 1: at the Bank of Japan and Tokyo, you know how
11:01
Speaker 1: they do the typical bow. So impactful to me, and
11:06
Speaker 1: it was so unique that UM actually stood it here.
11:10
Speaker 1: You know, that was impactful. Having my grandparents be able
11:15
Speaker 1: to come to the New York Soccer Change lunching Club
11:18
Speaker 1: when it was a lunching club and have men and
11:20
Speaker 1: white coats serve my grandparents and having the significance of
11:25
Speaker 1: them being there in that environment for them to see
11:29
Speaker 1: Um that you know, I had a place there was
11:34
Speaker 1: impactful for them in particular. Well, Reggie stayed in the industry.
11:39
Speaker 1: Zanalia Harris ultimately stopped working at large banks after she
11:43
Speaker 1: lost her job at Mary Lynch during the financial crisis.
11:46
Speaker 1: She then struck out on her own, writing a book,
11:49
Speaker 1: becoming an industry leading financial advisor and building programs for
11:53
Speaker 1: a woman to expand their wealth in her neighborhood in
11:56
Speaker 1: the suburbs of Washington, d C. She says large bank
12:00
Speaker 1: have largely failed her community. I live in a predominantly
12:04
Speaker 1: black community, and when I look around that community, I
12:07
Speaker 1: don't see representation from Wall Street there. So what I
12:12
Speaker 1: have seen over the years is that they've come into
12:15
Speaker 1: my community. UM, I felt like they came in, they
12:18
Speaker 1: didn't stay long, they didn't work within the community, and
12:21
Speaker 1: then they left. And so that was the reason why
12:24
Speaker 1: I started my own I wanted to serve my community.
12:28
Speaker 1: I wanted to be I wanted to be active in
12:31
Speaker 1: my community, and I wanted to see wealth built in
12:34
Speaker 1: my community. So some of the you know, do I
12:37
Speaker 1: feel that this what I'm hearing from Wall Street and
12:41
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing right now amongst companies, whether or not
12:44
Speaker 1: they want to support us and help elevate us so
12:49
Speaker 1: that we can um achieve a level of success. What
12:52
Speaker 1: would make that authentic for me is seeing at the
12:57
Speaker 1: executive level, and I'm talking about in C suite, seeing
13:01
Speaker 1: people of color. Um, they're represented as we know, UM
13:04
Speaker 1: the Fortune five hundred companies have no Black women as
13:08
Speaker 1: um as CEOs. So when I see change, and one
13:13
Speaker 1: of the things that I've heard over the years is Oh,
13:15
Speaker 1: there isn't a pipeline. I don't understand what that means,
13:18
Speaker 1: because UM, in my community, I see a plethora of
13:22
Speaker 1: highly educated UM African Americans who are ambitious, who are zoous,
13:28
Speaker 1: who are um want to make a difference. So I
13:32
Speaker 1: don't that there's a big disconnect with whether or not
13:35
Speaker 1: there's a pipeline. There is a pipeline. Zanalia Harris is
13:39
Speaker 1: not alone and saying Wall Street has left her community behind,
13:43
Speaker 1: both as employees and as clients. When it comes to
13:46
Speaker 1: accessing financial services, Government data shows that black people are
13:50
Speaker 1: less likely to access home loans and credit cards. The
13:54
Speaker 1: number of black owned banks in America has declined to
13:56
Speaker 1: just twenty one firms two decades ago there were four
14:00
Speaker 1: already eight Black ownership and stock markets is drastically behind
14:04
Speaker 1: white ownership. In fact, black people own less than five
14:08
Speaker 1: per cent of the stock market. Wall Street is a
14:18
Speaker 1: story of both hope and disappointment for people of color.
14:22
Speaker 1: The top ranks are so white that black people, who
14:25
Speaker 1: often encounter bias, often choose to work elsewhere. Lauren Simmons
14:30
Speaker 1: left her job at the New York Stock Exchange just
14:33
Speaker 1: a few years after joining. She appreciated her time there,
14:37
Speaker 1: but ultimately the juice was not always worth the squeeze.
14:41
Speaker 1: She now has two TV shows in development, a podcast,
14:45
Speaker 1: and a book in the works. The reality is I
14:47
Speaker 1: was only making twenty dollars working at the New York
14:50
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange. That's not enough to even breathe in New
14:53
Speaker 1: York City. If I had to do it again, I
14:56
Speaker 1: still had the mentality that if I worked for the
14:59
Speaker 1: New York Stock Exchange, this would be a great foundation
15:02
Speaker 1: to lead to better opportunities. And of course it did,
15:06
Speaker 1: but I don't think that is the story for many
15:08
Speaker 1: people you know that come to the New York Stock Exchange.
15:12
Speaker 1: You know, most people under the age of thirty, they
15:14
Speaker 1: do come to the trading floor thinking that this is
15:16
Speaker 1: going to be a platform or a gay way to
15:19
Speaker 1: other great opportunities. And the reality is that equity traders
15:23
Speaker 1: are slowly, slowly, slowly dwindling. And the job itself is
15:28
Speaker 1: you know, algorithms and way more passive. So the opportunities
15:32
Speaker 1: that you would get once before just aren't there for
15:35
Speaker 1: financial reasons. No, I don't think I would come back,
15:38
Speaker 1: and I don't think I would, you know, advocate for
15:41
Speaker 1: people to go to the trading floor, but I do think,
15:43
Speaker 1: you know, being in a space within the financial industry
15:46
Speaker 1: and getting paid what your worth. I would definitely tell
15:49
Speaker 1: people to go out and do that. But I do
15:51
Speaker 1: think the lack of diversity over decades um, anything past
15:56
Speaker 1: two thousand anything, is unfortunate. And I do think that
16:00
Speaker 1: we will see a lot of especially gen Zer Is
16:04
Speaker 1: just creating their own firms and they're going to make
16:07
Speaker 1: diversity and inclusion a top priority. While Lauren left Wall Street,
16:13
Speaker 1: Carla Harris stayed she found a fulfilling career at Morgan Stanley,
16:17
Speaker 1: but also recognizes serious flaws in the industry. She says,
16:21
Speaker 1: if Wall Street doesn't change, at risks turning away the
16:25
Speaker 1: best talent, with people of color turning to different industries
16:29
Speaker 1: or striking out on their own. And for younger generations,
16:32
Speaker 1: diversity is becoming more important than ever. What I've been
16:36
Speaker 1: saying to companies that I get an opportunity to consult
16:39
Speaker 1: with these days is that excellence looks very different for millennials.
16:44
Speaker 1: Zers they have a mother that has been a CEO
16:48
Speaker 1: or an executive director of a major nonprofit. They have
16:51
Speaker 1: seen women lead, and they've gone to these elite schools
16:54
Speaker 1: where on their left is a smart Black kid, on
16:57
Speaker 1: the right is the smartest spanning kid in front of
16:59
Speaker 1: them as smarty kid. Behind them a smart American Indian kid,
17:02
Speaker 1: and they are all outstanding. So that's what excellence looks like.
17:08
Speaker 1: Two millennials and zers. And if you do not have
17:11
Speaker 1: that represented in your leadership, they are not that interested
17:16
Speaker 1: in being a part of that organization. There's a large
17:18
Speaker 1: camp of people pushing banks to start recruiting outside of
17:22
Speaker 1: IVY League ranks at historically black colleges and in cities
17:26
Speaker 1: they haven't considered before. But Lauren Simmons says that might
17:30
Speaker 1: be hard for firms after decades of doing things the
17:34
Speaker 1: same way. Yeah, they're gonna have to be okay with
17:37
Speaker 1: putting themselves in different scenarios. Obviously, how their recruiting process
17:43
Speaker 1: over years, centuries has not worked to get different type
17:47
Speaker 1: of talent, and so they're gonna have to go out
17:50
Speaker 1: to They can, you know, find people in New York,
17:54
Speaker 1: they can find people in Middle America. But they're going
17:56
Speaker 1: to have to stop with the traditional going to IVY
17:59
Speaker 1: leagues and and picking from a certain demographic and and
18:04
Speaker 1: as well as talent trying to apply for jobs They're
18:06
Speaker 1: going to have to put themselves in uncomfortable situations and
18:09
Speaker 1: go beyond their mind and be able to apply for
18:14
Speaker 1: jobs that are outside of their comfort zone. There are
18:17
Speaker 1: executives like Henry Travis, founder of legendary private equity firm KKR,
18:22
Speaker 1: who believe it could take generations for Wall Street to
18:26
Speaker 1: make its ranks more diverse. Zannelia Harris sees an untapped
18:30
Speaker 1: talent source in her decades and finance. She says Wall
18:34
Speaker 1: Street could look to other industries to fill its top ranks,
18:37
Speaker 1: look at people who are transitioning into other opportunities. Because
18:42
Speaker 1: I also feel like we always go back to getting
18:46
Speaker 1: people out of college. But as I stated, we need
18:50
Speaker 1: people in executive level. What about pulling people from other
18:54
Speaker 1: industries who have the management skilled, the leadership skills UM
18:59
Speaker 1: that can be trained position into the financial services industry
19:02
Speaker 1: easily easily. UM. So, I think that it needs to
19:06
Speaker 1: be a two fold recruitment not just from college students
19:10
Speaker 1: but also from upper level management and transition them, transitioning
19:15
Speaker 1: them into the financial services industry. Those are two things
19:19
Speaker 1: that I think should be connected. After years of failing
19:24
Speaker 1: to improve on diversity and its ranks, Wall Street is
19:27
Speaker 1: grappling with how to make lasting change. Black Americans make
19:32
Speaker 1: up more than of the US population, but the top
19:37
Speaker 1: ranks of corporate America look nothing like the country. It serves.
19:41
Speaker 1: Elite roles that financial firms are overwhelmingly white, and the
19:45
Speaker 1: problem starts at the top, but middle management also lacks diversity.
19:49
Speaker 1: Banks and money managers don't only fail to recruit diverse employees,
19:53
Speaker 1: they also failed to promote them. Now, many people of
19:58
Speaker 1: color on Wall Street are speaking about race for the
20:01
Speaker 1: first time in their careers. That's the case for Reggie Brown,
20:05
Speaker 1: the so called godfather of e t S, says the
20:08
Speaker 1: death of George Floyd, followed by protests across the country,
20:12
Speaker 1: was the real catalyst. You know, seeing um George Floyd
20:18
Speaker 1: being murdered by Ay Coop with his hands in his pocket.
20:22
Speaker 1: You know, it's just morally reprehensible, you know. And I
20:25
Speaker 1: think because we're all at home, working at home from COVID,
20:29
Speaker 1: everyone had opportunity to kind of focus on it. And
20:33
Speaker 1: I think what's different is I think there's more people
20:37
Speaker 1: of color in their agency to speak freely about these issues.
20:43
Speaker 1: After George Floyd's death, Mark Mason, the chief financial officer
20:48
Speaker 1: at City group, and the only black executive at a
20:50
Speaker 1: top six bank at the time, wrote to his firms
20:53
Speaker 1: more than two hundred thousand employees. It was a tough
20:57
Speaker 1: decision for him to speak out, but he said he
21:00
Speaker 1: had to confront racism, that they all had to confront racism.
21:05
Speaker 1: His words set off a wave of remarks from black
21:07
Speaker 1: executives across Wall Street that in turn created a dialogue
21:12
Speaker 1: in the workplace that few had seen before. Mike Novograts
21:16
Speaker 1: was a rare white millionaire hedge fund type to walk
21:19
Speaker 1: in the New York City protests against police brutality and
21:23
Speaker 1: racial inequality that began in May. Seeing those large groups
21:27
Speaker 1: of young people forcing change has compelled him to start
21:31
Speaker 1: thinking differently. And I think walking in the protest was
21:34
Speaker 1: that was telling. It was a rainbow coalition. Uh young, black, brown,
21:40
Speaker 1: you know, Asian, of white, every race and ethnicity. Uh,
21:44
Speaker 1: y'all all young. I think I was double the age
21:47
Speaker 1: of the average participanting. It really felt spectacular and it
21:51
Speaker 1: was a I think a real recognition in New York.
21:54
Speaker 1: Uh that things are changing. Uh you can't watch, you know.
21:59
Speaker 1: I always say people ask me why I got into
22:01
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform, and one of the biggest reasons. I
22:03
Speaker 1: met Brian Stevenson, and when you hear his story of
22:08
Speaker 1: from slavery to to mass incarceration, and you hear Brian
22:12
Speaker 1: articulate this, you know, multi hundred year uh process of
22:18
Speaker 1: having to compressed. You know, African American community, you can't
22:23
Speaker 1: hear it like you hear the truth, and you can't
22:25
Speaker 1: on hear it. Well, we saw George Floyd, when we
22:28
Speaker 1: saw him murdered in a public legion. You can't un
22:32
Speaker 1: see it. And I think the whole country has woken
22:34
Speaker 1: up to say this. Things have to change. Yet Mike
22:37
Speaker 1: Novegrats still has a long way to go in his
22:40
Speaker 1: own hiring practices. He launched a cryptocurrency investment company in
22:46
Speaker 1: Galaxy Investment Partners, Yet three years later he has more
22:50
Speaker 1: than sixty employees and only two are black. Even wall
22:55
Speaker 1: streets upstart firms, the ones with the best opportunities to
22:58
Speaker 1: hire people of color, are failing to do so. Listen,
23:02
Speaker 1: changes top Um. We looked at ourselves and you know,
23:06
Speaker 1: we had had a few more African American blacks and
23:08
Speaker 1: and they left for various reasons. Uh, And so we're
23:11
Speaker 1: certainly not doing well enough. I'm committed I told our
23:15
Speaker 1: our our management, our leadership team that we've got to
23:17
Speaker 1: do better. We will get a black you know, member
23:19
Speaker 1: of awards soon. Um and listen. I made the mistake
23:24
Speaker 1: of thinking, hey, we're a startup company and it's it's
23:27
Speaker 1: harder to start going to start of industry where there
23:29
Speaker 1: are not a lot of black resumes and you're going
23:31
Speaker 1: as fast as you can. And so almost gave myself
23:34
Speaker 1: the excuse that we'll get it there. And that's a mistake.
23:37
Speaker 1: I raised my hand and say it was a mistake. Uh,
23:40
Speaker 1: it's harder. There are a lot of black resumes, and
23:43
Speaker 1: so we gotta look a little harder. You've gotta look
23:44
Speaker 1: in places and are you're not used to looking. And so,
23:47
Speaker 1: you know, cheers on you for calling me out. Uh,
23:51
Speaker 1: We're going to try harder. And that was the case
23:54
Speaker 1: even in the best financial market in history. What's challenging
23:58
Speaker 1: is that Wall Street has a tendency to slip behind
24:01
Speaker 1: on diversity efforts when times get tough, and right now
24:05
Speaker 1: we're in the deepest economic slump since the Great Depression.
24:09
Speaker 1: For Morgan Stanley's Carla Harris, her experience on Wall Street
24:13
Speaker 1: has seen banks hiring when markets are up then firing
24:16
Speaker 1: diverse hires when downturns call for a wider set of layoffs.
24:21
Speaker 1: The reason why I think we aren't farther along in
24:23
Speaker 1: financial services broadly, and certainly walls three particularly, is that
24:28
Speaker 1: I feel that diversity has been a bullmarket phenomenon. When
24:32
Speaker 1: things are going really well, then people are focused on it.
24:36
Speaker 1: They are spending lots of money, lots of resources, big
24:39
Speaker 1: spotlight on building the pipeline and getting lots of entry
24:43
Speaker 1: level folks in of color. And then when you get
24:46
Speaker 1: to a bear market environment, which in my experience has
24:50
Speaker 1: happened every four ish years, then it doesn't go away,
24:55
Speaker 1: but the spotlight intensity goes from ten to one or two.
24:59
Speaker 1: And then when have a bear market environment, you have restructurings,
25:02
Speaker 1: you have reductance and force, and obviously small populations are
25:06
Speaker 1: disproportionately hit. And then when we get back into an upturn,
25:11
Speaker 1: that's when you look around and you go, oh my gosh,
25:13
Speaker 1: where's my pipeline, and you've got to start all over again.
25:16
Speaker 1: So I think it's been this continuous cycle throughout my experience,
25:20
Speaker 1: which is why I don't think we are farther along now.
25:22
Speaker 1: I am first to say that we have made some progress,
25:26
Speaker 1: because it used to be so knowledge that I could
25:29
Speaker 1: name every person on Wall Street, let alone every senior
25:34
Speaker 1: person on Wall Street. And I am happy to say
25:38
Speaker 1: that I cannot do that today. So by definition, we've
25:43
Speaker 1: made some progress. About one month after the George Floyd
25:46
Speaker 1: protests began, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman sent a memo
25:51
Speaker 1: to more than seventy thousand of his bank employees. He
25:55
Speaker 1: accelerated the promotion of one black woman to the firm's
25:58
Speaker 1: most senior governing body. At the same time, he named
26:02
Speaker 1: a black woman to the firm's management committee to oversee
26:05
Speaker 1: diversity and inclusion. Gorman tells us Morgan Stanley is pouring
26:10
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars into diversity efforts. Days later,
26:14
Speaker 1: the bank denied a systemic bias claim in a lawsuit
26:18
Speaker 1: filed by the firm's former head of diversity, Maryland Booker,
26:22
Speaker 1: who was hired in and worked as a global head
26:25
Speaker 1: of diversity for sixteen years, said white, male centric leadership
26:30
Speaker 1: had refused to adopt her plans to address racial bias.
26:34
Speaker 1: The bank denies the claim. James Gorman has since pledged
26:38
Speaker 1: to be more aggressive and reaching communities of color to
26:42
Speaker 1: show that Morgan Stanley and Wall Street can be an
26:44
Speaker 1: attractive place to work. It's a society issue, and it
26:48
Speaker 1: starts with education, works its way through the college as
26:50
Speaker 1: the universities, and then took places of employment. And you know,
26:54
Speaker 1: we've made progress in the last secad, but we're not
26:56
Speaker 1: where we want to be. We're not satisfied. We've been
26:59
Speaker 1: looking at other other academic institutions for a long time.
27:02
Speaker 1: We have very strong relationships with the predominantly black colleges
27:06
Speaker 1: in the US, but we're going to get more aggressive
27:09
Speaker 1: than that. But it starts earlier. We have to introduce
27:11
Speaker 1: a much broader community to the kind of career opportunities
27:15
Speaker 1: that you can have at a place like Morgan Stanley.
27:17
Speaker 1: Whether it's writing new code for some of bad technology platforms,
27:21
Speaker 1: whether it's working with our marketing teams, whether it's being
27:23
Speaker 1: a trader on a foreign exchange days, whether it's managing
27:26
Speaker 1: wealth for individuals across the country. There are so many
27:29
Speaker 1: different careers and we have to open people's eyes to that.
27:33
Speaker 1: It can be dangerous to think that this time is different,
27:36
Speaker 1: but Reggie Brown believes it. He believes that social accountability
27:41
Speaker 1: can go a long way and forcing companies to hire differently,
27:45
Speaker 1: promote more people of color, and reach specific goals for
27:48
Speaker 1: black faces in the top ranks. I think it really
27:51
Speaker 1: is the population of younger people just saying enough. And
27:59
Speaker 1: I think it's a sistant or isn't really I really,
28:01
Speaker 1: I really think that's really the reason behind what we're seeing.
28:05
Speaker 1: They're saying enough, and they're saying it's not fair, and
28:08
Speaker 1: they're making a conclusion and they're taking a stand, you know.
28:13
Speaker 1: And I think that's what's different about this time. And
28:17
Speaker 1: I think other times we come together as a nation,
28:21
Speaker 1: but it's around like bigger events, Challenger exploding, you know,
28:25
Speaker 1: not eleven all right, I mean that's the biggest one.
28:29
Speaker 1: But as far as a man being dragged behind his
28:32
Speaker 1: car James Byrd in Texas, you know that there wasn't
28:35
Speaker 1: a big focus on it, you know. I can't recall
28:39
Speaker 1: there was something that everyone was just ghastly about and
28:42
Speaker 1: said let's come together and fix it. Can't recall it.
28:48
Speaker 1: There are still concerns about whether Wall Street is sincere
28:51
Speaker 1: about its efforts to boost the number of black people
28:54
Speaker 1: and its ranks. There's skepticism that more black faces will
28:58
Speaker 1: make it to the c suite, and if they do,
29:01
Speaker 1: what will they face? Will they face resistance when speaking
29:05
Speaker 1: out about struggles in the industry, Will unconscious bias or
29:09
Speaker 1: even outright bias have white clients flocked to white bankers instead?
29:14
Speaker 1: And is the struggle for equal pay and equal opportunity
29:18
Speaker 1: something that will ever go away? On Wall Street? There's
29:21
Speaker 1: been no universal black experience. We spoke to about two
29:25
Speaker 1: dozen people of color and finance, and the range of
29:28
Speaker 1: outcomes was wide. Some made it to the tub, some
29:32
Speaker 1: left disenchanted, Some became rich. Some were so marginalized they
29:37
Speaker 1: had to sue. Some believe that Wall Street is hopeless,
29:41
Speaker 1: but some are more optimistic than ever. You've been listening
29:51
Speaker 1: to a Bloomberg Radio special, Being Black on Wall Street.
29:57
Speaker 1: Our thanks to the dozens of people who spoke to
30:00
Speaker 1: us for this report and special. Thanks to contributors Max Abelson,
30:04
Speaker 1: Kelsey Butler, editors Christine Harbur and Stryker McGuire. You can
30:08
Speaker 1: get more on this and other stories online at Bloomberg
30:11
Speaker 1: dot com and on Twitter at Bloomberg Quicktake. Our program
30:15
Speaker 1: was produced by Colin Tipton. I'm Shinnali Bassik, and this
30:19
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg