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AIM High: Diversity as a driver of change · Two in Twenty

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to another episode of AIM High.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Twink Field.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the CEO and founder of White Marble Marketing.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: AIM is the Association of Investment Marketers, and this podcast is specifically for marketers, and we talk about a range of subjects really across industry, product, practical, and personal tips.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are talking about diversity and inclusion, and we have two great speakers: Bev Shah, who is the founder of City Hive, which is dedicated to sort of positive change and inclusive cultures in this industry, and as well as Dan Gilmour, who is a director of Last Word Media.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear quite a range of subjects being covered, as well as my attempt to try and jump in every now and again.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So good morning.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to Dan and Bev.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for chatting with me today about diversity and inclusion being a force for good in our industry.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It would be fab if you guys could just kick off by uh saying a little bit around your background, who you are, and sort of why you are so passionate about this topic.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm Bev Shah, I'm CEO and founder of City Hive.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um before I set City Hive up, I was a fund manager researcher for about 15 years of my career.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've was in a privileged position to be able to have a very um high-level view of the entire industry and the whole ecosystem and how it all meshes together.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's what drove me to set up City Hive and actually really champion the one bit of our industry culture which doesn't really get looked at and never really got looked at previously.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant, thanks.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Dan.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'm Dan Gilmore.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm a director at Last Word, having worked there for the last 14 years.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've equally when I came into the industry, it was a very different industry.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I have grown in an industry which I believe now is really changing, and it's something that I would quite like to not have the younger version of me have to go through.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but equally, um, we've recently been purchased by Bon Hill, and at their core is diversity.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um the fact that I am gay um has somehow pushed me to the forefront, and um I am brought out every so often as a token.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I do believe that in my position of where I am and with people such as Bev, who um I'm on the board with, I think we can make a change, and I think if we all work together, it's all about the cultural change, not the um not particular areas, I think it's the industry as a whole.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So to get stuck straight into it, I guess, to that point, where are the awareness levels, do you think, um, amongst senior management in our industry as to the need for change?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think it well, from my perspective, equally, um, I should have mentioned I also work alongside LGBT Great, and um they had an initiative last year where um they got 50 C-suite execs for 50 years of stone wall.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean everybody did sign up, and I don't know if that was done through more of a pressure from below, but either way, it's not just about doing that, it's about actually practicing what you preach.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people are beginning to do it because they have to do it, but if you look under the car bonnet, I'm not sure as yet if that's really the case.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're only really a couple of years into, I suppose, the movement, if you want to call it that.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, a few years ago no one cared.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Diversity was not at the DNA of every organization as it seems to be now.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think where organizations have woken up to the fact that it actually impacts their investment outcomes, that's where you can see some real change.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, signing up to things and pledging things are all fine, and they're the certainly the first step and the right in going, you know, in terms of moving in the right direction.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: But eventually people will, the numbers will start to show.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you do have very visible gender pay gap numbers.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you can see how many women are on boards, for instance.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, eventually there will be more reporting on um ethnicity and sexuality, and and and that's when the numbers will show.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you've got the argument in in the diversity debate, there's the representation, which is you know, the numbers of people you have that you can visibly see, and then there's the um cognitive diversity.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And within an industry which relies purely on um judgment, that is what investment is.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: It is an art, not a science.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can't um you really need cognitive diversity.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And as someone who's interviewed thousands of fund managers over the years, the ones, the teams that have really shone out for me were the ones with diverse thinkers.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's not so much, you know, because they had, you know, more women or more ethnic people, or because actually there aren't that many, you know, with only 13 black fund managers in the industry.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can't say there's there's many going around.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you can see that they had more robust decision making coming out.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because when everyone is looking in one direction, you need the person who's looking in the other to spot the blind spot who says, Hey guys, have you thought about this?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when you get a more robust investment outcome.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And all, you know, all three of us have been in the industry for a long time.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that trend, which was, you know, 10 years ago of hiring the brightest and the best from Oxbridge, actually, you need to start thinking that's not the way to go necessarily.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it does start at grassroots, and I think that's where we can begin to make a change.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's going to happen, obviously, within our generation, but I think if we can set the template for what people can hopefully follow, then that means that we're beginning to move the dial.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is also the end investor is looking a lot more, again, using that expression, under the carbonic, to see what they're investing in.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And rightfully they should.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: So if you can bring in diversity into your teams, and if your external messaging does reflect what's actually happening internally, people will be more comfortable in investing because an investor, such as myself, is asking questions.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I I wouldn't support a fund that perhaps has a connection to the Sultan of Brunei because of what his views are on homosexuality and people are thinking a lot more about the world rather than just their own means.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a lot of pressure on the in on the industry in general from fees and passives, and if you really want, as the investment management industry, if we want to have some longevity, um, not only in terms of attracting talent, but also our our end customer, not just going the passive route.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think we are we really live in a bubble in the city.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've I, you know, in the last three years I've kind of stepped out of that bubble and I've really been able to see what other how other people see us.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't see us how we see ourselves.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we aren't bankers, we are a different industry.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: We do service the entire nation.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: We are a national industry, and yet we aren't servicing our end user.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um the gender pension gap is 40%.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that debate's actually just kicking off, I think now, because of the WASPY women.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something our industry needs to address because from a marketing point of view, when our when the FCA has always in their handbook referred to women, or no, customers as he, it's no wonder that most marketing terminology is targeted as at men.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: When uh less than, I think less than 17% of the FCA register is women, and some half of that is managerial and and not um managing money.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think only something like 8% manage discretionary money on the on the FCA register.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're talking about there's a massive deficit on representation, and that's a ticking time bomb.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So as a as an industry and as marketing people and people who create product, we need to start thinking about well, actually, where have we failed?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: What do we need to do to change that?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: How do we close that deficit?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do we sell?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because actually, for anyone who's a cynic about the diversity debate, there's actually profit to be made.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think this is a slight winner-takes-all industry, you know, move because And it's not going away, right?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And where where it's really different hard to differentiate between one asset manager from another, because everyone's got very similar websites with buildings and things like that.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to start to those firms that actually have woken up to this and then start to Okay, there's a lot to dig into there.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like a number of subjects.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, quite a few roads there are pointing back to brand, aren't they?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you think of transparency, of trust, of differentiation, there is such an onus on the marketing department, the responsibility on the marketing departments and heads of departments to really sort of grasp that nettle, isn't it?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And to sort of really take the challenge internally to senior management if they're not listening.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the most important thing because you can advocate as much as you want.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: But if somebody looks into your ESG or how you're actually working internally, it's all there.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: So a firm, for instance, that may say that paternity is available to everybody and you can take as much time as you want, and then you actually look at the proof of it and it's actually not happening, then that's false.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's it's kind of begins to create a bit of mistrust in that particular brand.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very hard for the marketeers because the marketeers are going or working along the sort of the philosophy or the ideals of the company itself.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: But if they're not practicing what they're preaching in the C-suite, then you can say as much as you want and you can have as much diversity on your posters and you can have gay couples and all that kind of stuff.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: From an optical point of view, all it takes is one person to go onto Glassdoor.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: One person.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's very hard for your you marketeers or the marketeers because Dan's pointing a finger at me.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: I always pointing a finger at you.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um matter how much you guys do, it's imperative that you are fully aware of what is happening within the culture of your company because um Bev's mentioned this before, is that you know the long-term messaging could be destroyed.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And if you if your reputation gets destroyed, it's a really hard thing to trust.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: The brand, you know, the brand, the culture, the cook, the company reputation is so linked, it's such a huge value now on that.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: To your earlier point, Dan, around people are choosing their investment manager in a different way now and expecting to be able to sort of look into the business and respect it and to trust it.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is so much to do with the sort of the company values and the behaviours that they are prepared to call out or to adopt and the policies they're going to put in place.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there is a different onus now on the kind of organizational behaviours and policies and values.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we need to be able to be brave enough to call out the values that do not conform to what we're actually stating.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Equally, and that will only work if the marketing teams work closely with the diversity and inclusion teams and try and kind of get that conversation going so that they are made aware and that they don't fall into the trap and all of a sudden they end up looking like they don't actually.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: The role of the marketeer is completely changed.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you said, it's about the value that people are placing on the internal organization.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you all you have to look at is RFPs coming through and the questions that are changing.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: No longer is it just about investment teams, performance, bios, you know, there are questions coming through about internal employment policies.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: There are questions about how many um, you know, harassment cases have you had.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: There are things that are really going to shine a light on your organization if you want to sell your product, and you obviously can't lie on or spin those numbers.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so one of the one of the key things again for that sits with marketing and communications is is the retention of staff.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So so we we often get asked around the gender around gender pay gap reporting.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, Peville, you know, our numbers have gone back slightly.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: What do we say?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because they weren't, you know, we were doing all the right things.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: We put policy in place.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you kind of would expect it, because if you do just have to look at the you know, the the quants of it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have got less senior women and you've got, you know, at the end of the day, the pipeline will take a while to mature, and all it takes is one senior woman to leave.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And at the moment you're like gold us, so you know, you're gonna get poached left, right, and centre.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all it takes is one to leave, and then you kind of your number shifts backwards.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: The key there is communication, not just to the external, which often you see a great PR piece go out internally, because the internal stuff, our members come to us and say, My firm has just gone backwards.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or do they not care about me?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, for our industry, our biggest asset are the people.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, you see time again, it doesn't, it can be across a range of different subjects.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: In a vacuum of communication, people make up their own narrative, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to absolutely own it, and somebody needs to really sort of be proactive to take it out.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, as Bev touched on before, the role of the marketing has become more important.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And perhaps, you know, there was a lack of, I wouldn't say respect, but a lack of acknowledgement of what the power of the marketing is, because everyone just trusted brand before, and that's what it was all about.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was all about how big your brand could be.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: But people are now looking for content, and people now kind of want to get the justification behind why you're doing what you're doing, which means that markers have got such a stronger position of power than they did before.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: And whether that be with the distribution teams, whether that be with the investment teams, they can and they could be quite pivotal to sort of some of the change in the messaging that's going out there and actually, you know, make sure it doesn't sort of go back up in their face.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you just say, yes, our number is this, we expect it not to change for a while.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: However, these are the things that we're doing, not just the sponsoring of X, Y, or Z awards or whatever.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's that we've put this program in place, we've put that policy in place.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about because I think we've sort of identified the pro problem to some degree and the challenge for our industry.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what are the kind of the great initiatives that you're seeing play out?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Are there sort of some to sort of put up in lights that we can talk to?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we we have a program that's live that brings together women from across the industry with a coach which offers them the kind of coaching that you would get, you know, if you were in the C-suite, which would cost probably tens, if not hundreds of thousands, um, for a fraction of that.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it helps you build those skills and gives you a peer network straight away.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason we did that was because it actually the problem we have in our industry is retaining mid-career talent.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: We need people to do the day job, and that's not about seniority level because you could be a senior fund manager, you could be a senior economist, you could be, you know, an analyst of 20 years, you still would be considered mid-career because you're not on that kind of management track and you don't maybe want to be, or it's a mindset thing.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: You might be senior from your job point of view, but in your head, you've just been worn down.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know this because I was in that position.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're just kind of like, you know, life has been chucked at you.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: You've seen you've been disappointed by not being promoted time and time again.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know that you aren't getting the same pay rises as your male colleagues.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's just natural, and every industry sees it.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: What you need is your impact and feeling like you belong and you want to do the best in your team.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what you can do.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there are um just on that.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think to have impact, certainly as a marker, which is what we're talking about, trying to sort of bring out that marketing voice and influence so much is around your ability, you know, your skills for persuasion and negotiation and influence and communication, isn't it?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think those are skills that need developing.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're not just no one teaches you teaches you those.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: No one kind of, you know, you often, and I remember when I was, you know, more junior, I'd look at people who were senior and go, wow, they're really polished, they really know their stuff.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, what I didn't realise is they had years and thousands and thousands of pounds thrown into them from a coach, you know.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not really going to go anywhere.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And you can have a women in asset management type of event, but it's really what you do post of it.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also about educating not the women, it's about educating.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's winning over the men and every other, it's bringing it all under one, as Bev's mentioned before, the idea of culture.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what you know, marketing could do, is because there are these different diversity groups that all meet up on a monthly basis, and you try and get other groups to come and join in, but that doesn't really work.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: But there has to be the idea that it's about the culture, and within that culture are subsections, and the subsections are where we now fit in, but really it's all for the same common good, which is to show or for the marketing marketers to show that you are taking this seriously and that this is being reflected in what's actually being published out there.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're often asked, like, you know, what is what is City, who is City Hive targeted at?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think people think it's targeted at women.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's not, it's targeted at straight white men, because the way you change this industry is by convincing them that it's for the betterment for them.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you kind of silo people into groups and you have your, you know, employee resource groups internally, your women's networks and your BAME network, which I hate that word, by the way, um, and your you know, LGBT network, and it's all great, and you should have safe spaces where people can talk about things, and it's generally where you come together and you know you have a big moan-up about what the problem is.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why should we have to show that to have a seat at the table?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't I be as bad at my job as my other colleagues might be?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: But just because I'm I'm a brown woman, I need to prove myself.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to have to prove myself, I want to have a seat at the table, and then I can just do my job like everyone else.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where we have to kind of move to that.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're not taking away from someone, but you also don't have to be better.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And all those, going back to those studies, all those studies actually don't, it's not really about the number of women on board or ethnic minorities.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually they those organizations were already better places to work.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: They were environments where diversity flourished and naturally people arrived.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it was done from an authentic point of view, and that's why their bottom line is better.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Quite.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it absolutely is back to those the culture, the values, the behaviours that are all so intrinsically linked.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think we do need to be much more overt about what we do stand for and why everyone should care and how do we create this environment where everybody feels included and respected and able to perform to the best of their ability.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and also marketing should have the power to question, should have the power or have a place at the table, perhaps because in some ways they are not completely representative of the internal structure, but they do have a part to play because 100%.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Every policy that someone has made internally, a marketing person should be sat there saying, This is how it appears externally, this is how we're going to tell people we have this.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great selling tool.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're putting positive internal employment cultures in, it's sharing best practice, you know, if you're allowing your employees to work truly flexibly and agile in a modern way, a marketing person should be there.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I isn't it interesting though, that historically HR and marketing have not been at the table.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: They have been these departments that haven't had a voice.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is so much change having to come through in these businesses where they need leaders in those departments that are going to take the initiative, that are going to communicate, that are going to ensure that they are focused on employee engagement.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, let's not beat about the bush.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: We all, you know, we are struggling to divert to differentiate rather, um, in terms of the brands that we have.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and so one of the ways that we we need to attract talent is by being able to point to a really powerful culture, a really strong brand that that stands for all of these qualities and the benefits of these qualities.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there is a huge amount to do, and I think it is taking it there is a huge kind of onus on the need for education and the to be able to point to the tangible benefit.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And weirdly, people think it's really complicated, but it isn't.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's really not that complicated.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's about having a conversation with your peers within your company and actually sitting down and saying, So, what are we doing?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think probably maybe a lot of marketers do know, but I do have or I have had conversations with certain marketing teams that are unaware that they sponsor LGBT Great or that they sponsor City Hive.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of a lost opportunity because these initiatives are working well in the UK.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder is it I mean, these are obviously early days and teething problems, and often it's more of a kind of political land grab internally.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Does this kind of smack of the kind of journey that ESG has had?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm sure when, you know, for instance, when people were signing up to the PRI pledge originally, and then there would probably be debate about where does this sit?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Does this sit with your kind of CSR team?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Does it sit with, you know, if you've got a sustainability fund?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Who does it sit with?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Does it with marketing?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Does it sit with sales?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm pretty sure now it majority sits with kind of marketing and distribution in terms of the budget and how you sell your ESG or not, because I mean I wasn't.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think I I Dara be a cynic on this.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder to some degree whether you know the the social drivers of some of this is what the businesses expect the softer departments within their business to address and to look after, and that they're they're actually needing to be persuaded by the financial benefit.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I and Dara and I and that you know the proof is there through again the sort of research around the the kind of more diverse teams be the better performer, before better performing businesses.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: But um I I just I just worry that there is this sort of um sort of response to the social side of it, and so it's not being brought through to your earlier point, Dan, around if we are doing these initiatives, why don't why doesn't the business know?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it sounds to me like unfortunately, some of those um sponsorships and activities are just about ticking a box to look like they are doing something when it's actually not running deep enough.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them are, but then there are others that do work.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's actually the opposite.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the it's um people who in the organization who deeply care about this, but they aren't necessarily in the role of marketing or or in in empowering or or amplifying what they're doing.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: So they'll put the money towards it, and a few people will go to an event, for instance, but they don't actually and they really deeply care about changing things, but they don't necessarily have the the power to or to spread that message out there.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think the whole thing is you haven't got enough of a benchmark yet to see how changing your social internal um structure will then pay dividends in terms of um the the the bottom line of what the sales guy is gonna get or whoever or whatever the fund's going to do.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: But it is a long-term thing, and and people are looking at this a lot more intently and intensely than they have before.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're not gonna sort of jump on the bandwagon now, then you will be left behind.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: But equally, you've got to do it for the right reasons and not the wrong ones.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: To your earlier point, you know, a lot of the impetus is going to come from investors and what they're looking for to your to your point as well.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, most obviously people who look at funds have a fairly similar process of looking at you know performance and philosophy and and and position of the portfolio.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things is looking at the the company.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there's very little information out there about inf investment management companies, you know, a very fairly bland website.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can't rely on the sheet.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And not, well, you know, you would have started off here, but then someone would have diluted it definitely.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that we're creating, um my chief strategist is a lady called Mandy Kirby, and um one of the things that she saw was that the biggest driver for certainly even ESG and and doing better was the company, the diversity element, the culture of the business.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's one of the reasons I managed to persuade her to come and join me, because I said to her, one of the things that fund buyers don't have is an insight into what a firm actually, the heart and soul.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because as much as you can kind of go, let's look at the stats, how many women do you have on board?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and what you want to see is okay, you might be a firm of um, I don't know, I'm gonna take the example of one of my um founding members, Webb.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: They are a very small firm which have, you know, a handful of partners who are all white men from privileged backgrounds.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: But they care, they genuinely care about change.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all my conversations with them, I have walked away thinking these people care.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, if I'd looked at it on paper, I would have gone, uh, four white men with from privileged backgrounds.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's not enough.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: What we need to see is dig a bit deeper at the heart and soul of a company.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: What are they doing externally?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: What are they doing internally?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we have we've actually started down the process now of a consultation period on our kite mark, um, yet to be named, um, which is a framework around a corporation and looking at everything from not just what your internal policies are, but how your staff feel about it, to what you're doing from an external point of view, not only to engage the next generation, what are you doing to build trust back into our industry, what are you doing to really change the world, as opposed to just I've signed a pledge and I've done this.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: That would be some element of it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think again, it's it's a whole idea for for your audience, is it's about being quite bullish about getting a place at that table.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know currently a lot of what we see is content-led and um product led, but if we it's if we can also look at this sort of like the the company itself, and they get more involved in that side of things, then that's where the change can happen.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: But also, as an organization, don't you want to be a part of the change or lead the charge in something like this?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: There was a great anecdote from uh the lady who's the head of advertising at Unilever, where she has something like a seven billion spend annually, and they did some research into their practices, and she was just, you know, mortified to say that, you know, God links, you know, can't believe that's how we try to sell by spraying men and it would attract women.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: She said from their study of advertising, for instance, only 4% of women portrayed on all advertising are shown as the leader, they're normally the bit part, um, and only 0.4% of women shown on all advertising, 0.4%, bearing in mind we make up 51% of the population, have a sense of humour.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: 0.4%.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so then she's then she said, um, talked about product and how it um impacted on their revenue streams.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And she gave the example of Dove.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: So Dove have this great obviously campaign of real women's bodies.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it was 2006 when it first started, and all it was was they added a woman to the team.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, hey guys, actually, women don't want to see fabulous bodies, and you know, if you want to really sell this product, you need to show real women.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they did that, and they added billions onto their revenue stream.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was there's those little tweaks when you think about the end customer.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's why it's the job of the marketeer and not to even push back and feel empowered.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's now now it's time to be empowered because you talked about you know HR and marketing not having seats at the table.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the top-heavy female departments.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now is the time for us to feel empowered because if not now, when?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think from um an individual marketer's point of view, um, it may be just a useful way of just wrapping up um to sort of just reflect on, you know, if you're just beginning to sort of find your voice in this and trying to help assert um change, um, uh do you have any sort of tips as to how they might start that journey, um, start to influence their colleagues?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think we've probably said it a few times already, but it is about getting more involved in the internal culture of the company.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: But equally, when you're communicating with your distribution teams, and if you get access to your C-suite guys, is in any way, shape, or form, get that message out to them as well and really underline the importance of being true to what you're saying.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that if you don't, then it will come back and bite you on the bump.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say um my two tips would be look out for best practice that your competitors are doing, because that's so easy to do.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: There are firms who are doing it, and just say, look, they're doing it.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and actually convert those people that you see who have the power, the distribution guys or the seat, into your ambassadors.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, plenty of you know, the people I speak to in distribution are are fathers and are impacted by all of this who also would like more work-life.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Work-life balance is is the key in all of this, you know, to convert anyone into creating a better place to work.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and, you know, including them that in that conversation.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because now we've moved away from that old school what they call marriage model of the 1950s.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Most people, you know, are in partnerships with with people who also work, they have children, they don't want to grow up in this way.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so they are ready to make a change if they can see how it'll impact them.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that is for a lot of certainly the guys, it that work-life balance, and it's their clients also, you know, being able to sell it to the clients through your RFPs.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I would also say, sort of, with all communications of this type, um, to really ensure that it runs deep, that you can point to the evidence so that um you can sort of make the change internally before you start talking about it externally.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Authenticity is the is the key.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Has it come from the right place or not?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are sort of true to that, then your brand, your culture, your reputation will hold up.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: But equally, look look outside of the financial industry and see how other and how other industries have successfully bridged some of this because there is there are many success stories, and I think we may be slightly a bit behind, but that doesn't mean that we have to be so far behind.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: We could sort of leapfrog over others and perhaps get there quicker.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that just leaves me to thank you, Dan Bev, for your time today.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's been really, really interesting.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.