Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How an Accountancy Firm Made Class a Career Conversation
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this moment in every diversity conversation where someone brings up 'fit' or 'culture add' and everyone nods, but nobody says what they're really thinking. And I think the thing they're often not saying — especially in professional services — is class. Luna: You mean socio-economic background? Where you grew up, what your parents did, what school you went to? Lucas: Exactly. And it's arguably the least discussed dimension of diversity, partly because it's harder to measure, partly because people feel awkward talking about money and upbringing, and partly because the profession likes to think of itself as a pure meritocracy. But a mid-sized accountancy firm — I'll call them GrantField Thornton, not the real name — decided to look at it systematically. Luna: What did they do? Lucas: They ran a 'Class and Career' pilot. They tracked two things for every associate and manager: the occupation of the parent who earned the most when they were fourteen, and the type of secondary school they attended — state versus private, selective versus comprehensive. Then they cross-referenced that with promotion rates over an eight-year window. Luna: That's unusually granular. Most firms won't touch that data. Did they find a gap? Lucas: A significant one. Partners who came from private-school, professional-family backgrounds — where at least one parent was a doctor, lawyer, accountant, or senior manager — reached partnership in an average of 11.4 years post-qualification. Partners from state-school, first-in-family backgrounds — where neither parent had a degree and the main breadwinner worked in a manual or clerical job — took 13.7 years. That's 2.3 years longer. Luna: Two point three years. That is a real gap. And that's among the people who actually made partner — so the gap among everyone else could be even wider. Lucas: Right. The pilot didn't capture attrition, but the implication is clear: if you're from a non-professional background, you either leave earlier or you stay longer on the path. The firm's managing partner said something I thought was really honest. She said, 'We always assumed our promotion process was blind to background because we use the same criteria for everyone. But the criteria themselves — visibility, client relationships, internal networks — those are not equally accessible.' Luna: That's the crux of it. It's not about explicit bias. It's about who gets informal coaching, who gets staffed on the high-profile client, who gets invited to the after-work drinks where the real mentoring happens. Lucas: Exactly. So GrantField Thornton's response wasn't to change the promotion criteria — it was to change the access. They launched a sponsorship program specifically for associates and managers from non-professional backgrounds. Each participant was paired with a partner who was not in their direct reporting line — deliberately outside their team — and the sponsor's job was to advocate for that person in partner meetings, recommend them for visible assignments, and have monthly career conversations. Luna: Why outside the reporting line? That seems like a deliberate design choice. Lucas: It was. The firm had evidence that people from professional backgrounds tended to have sponsors who were also their direct supervisors — which created a natural alignment. But for someone from a non-professional background, their direct supervisor might not have the same network or might not think to advocate. By assigning an external sponsor, you guarantee that at least one partner in the room is actively pulling for that person. Luna: And the sponsor is measured on it? Or is it voluntary? Lucas: They made sponsorship count toward partners' annual objectives. Not a hard target, but a qualitative assessment: did the sponsor meet monthly, did they document advocacy, did the participant get at least one stretch assignment during the year. The firm also collected feedback from participants — and two years in, the promotion rate for sponsored individuals from non-professional backgrounds was 1.8 times higher than the historical rate for that group. Luna: That is a tangible result. And it's cost-effective — it doesn't require hiring, it doesn't require restructuring. It just requires partners to be intentional about who they're pulling up. Lucas: Now, I want to be careful not to overclaim. This is one pilot at one firm. The sample size was about 40 people in the sponsorship cohort. But the reason I find it worth discussing is the transparency around the data. Most firms won't even collect this data because they're afraid of what it will show, or they think it's too politically sensitive. Luna: And that's probably the biggest barrier — the fear of the conversation itself. Class is hard to talk about because it's wrapped up in identity and aspiration and sometimes shame. People don't want to feel like their success is attributed to background rather than merit. Lucas: Right. But the interesting thing is that when GrantField Thornton shared the pilot results internally, they framed it as a structural issue, not a personal failing. They said, 'Our system unintentionally rewards background. That's not anyone's fault, but it's our responsibility to fix.' And that framing got buy-in from partners across backgrounds. Luna: If we've helped you think through a career move or decision — maybe you're considering how to advocate for a program like this in your own firm — we'd love to keep these conversations going. This show is ad-free and listener-supported, and a small contribution at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo helps us keep it that way. No pressure, but if this podcast is useful to you, consider throwing a few dollars in the virtual jar. Lucas: Yeah, and that support genuinely makes a difference — it lets us stay independent and dig into stories like this one without worrying about sponsors. So thank you to anyone who does. Now, back to the accountancy firm — one more detail I thought was smart. They also created a reverse-mentoring component where junior staff from non-professional backgrounds could mentor senior partners on what they were seeing in the pipeline. That gave partners direct exposure to the barriers without having to read a report. Luna: That's a great idea. It makes the data human. And it gives the junior staff a platform they might not otherwise have. Lucas: Exactly. So the question I want to leave us with: if a mid-sized accountancy firm can look at class head-on and redesign a single program to close a 2.3-year promotion gap, what's stopping larger organisations from doing the same? Luna: I think part of it is that class diversity doesn't have the same legal protections or activism infrastructure as race or gender. There's no EEOC category for 'went to a comprehensive school.' So it's easier to ignore. Lucas: That's a fair point. But the business case is there. The firm I mentioned found that their non-professional-background partners had higher client retention rates — they tended to build deeper relationships with small and mid-market clients because they understood those clients' contexts better. So there's a performance angle too. Luna: So addressing class isn't just equity — it's strategy. Lucas: It is. And the first step is just being willing to look at the data. GrantField Thornton started with a simple question: 'Who are we promoting, and where did they come from?' That question alone started the shift.