DCIIA honors 30 DEI leaders and 29 rising stars

The Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association is recognizing 30 leaders and 29 rising stars with its second annual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Awards.

The awards spotlight those "advocating for or otherwise contributing to member organizations' diversity, equity and inclusiveness," according to DCIIA's website. Award winners will be honored June 8 at a dinner in Washington.

The awards are one way DCIIA highlights the importance of DEI and bringing more diverse talent into the defined contribution industry. Firms and plan participants stand to benefit from more diverse voices and individuals, said Lew Minsky, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based DCIIA president and CEO. Those diverse voices help identify who's being left behind in the retirement savings system, better understand why that is and find ways to close those gaps, he added.

"We see it not just as changing the complexion of the industry and the people that work in it, but really meaningfully impacting the way that we're helping Americans, working Americans, secure their retirements," Mr. Minsky said.

A few years ago, DCIIA's executive committee decided to focus on DEI to encourage its member firms and the industry to bring in more diverse personnel and to take more of a leadership role societally, Mr. Minsky explained. It created the awards to recognize existing leaders and identify rising stars to provide them with the opportunity to engage with the DEI community. DCIIA members submitted nominees, then members of DCIIA's DEI committee reviewed the nominations and chose the winners.

Many of the leader award winners have supported DEI efforts for years, often without a DEI-specific title, on top of their other responsibilities. "I think a lot of times organizations or companies believe that you have to have a DEI title to be in DEI. I personally feel like diversity, equity and inclusion sits on everyone's desk, and everyone has a role to play in that," said DEI award winner James Seth Thompson, senior vice president, head of diverse markets strategy and senior executive sponsor of the Black employee resource group at Bernstein Private Wealth Management, New York.

Internal efforts toward improving DEI commonly center on attracting a more diverse pipeline of applicants, employee retention and workplace culture.

"The sheer numbers of talented professionals or individuals who are unaware of the career opportunities that exist within asset management … that's the root cause of the problem," said award winner John Halaby, executive vice president and head of distribution at Harbor Capital Advisors Inc., Chicago.

To address this issue, the DEI award winners helped create a variety of partnerships and internships. Nimisha Srivastava, Charlotte, N.C.-based head of investments, North America, at Willis Towers Watson PLC, partnered with non-profit Diversity Investment Management Engagement to identify high-performing minority high school students and provide them with internships. "If there's a lending firm that promotes diversity that has a really diverse team, maybe they’ll actually tackle some of the issues and challenges of access to capital for underserved borrowers,” Ms. Srivastava said.

Similarly, Mr. Thompson and other Bernstein leaders created initiatives focused on historically Black colleges and universities to diversify its talent pipeline.

Some firms are able to attract a diverse pipeline, but they noticed retention and advancement difficulties. “We were putting a diverse slate together, but either people weren’t getting hired or people were getting hired and we weren’t able to retain them,” said DEI award winner Emma Rodriguez-Ayala, Chicago-based general counsel and chief compliance officer at Legal & General Investment Management America. She said keeping diverse talent requires an inclusive environment.

Mr. Thompson noted this is difficult to measure. “We can look at numbers all day long, but what isn’t measured in statistics is how people feel, and that’s where the belonging comes in. If I feel like I belong, then I feel like I can strive and thrive … because I really believe that I can be who I am and that the firm really values the differences I bring to the table.”

Many leader award winners explained how employee resource groups or business resource groups foster an inclusive environment. DEI award winner Stacia Brown, Springfield, Mass.-based head of life product development at MassMutual, joined the company’s Black and African American Business resource group when she started at MassMutual almost a decade ago and realized how necessary it is for many employees. Diverse talent needs “people who look like them and who needed to speak up for them or speak about certain issues,” she said. Ms. Brown now chairs the resource group, which puts on awareness and education programs for employees covering topics such as George Floyd’s murder and Black Lives Matter.

Award winner Annie Liu, Bellevue, Wash.-based managing director and regional market executive for the Pacific Northwest region of Charles Schwab Corp. and national co-chairwoman of its women’s employee resource group, believes the support she gained through ERG participation led to her professional growth. If she didn’t have the mentorship, sponsors or coaches show up, she said, “I probably would never have been able to navigate my career the way that I did.”

Other advancement efforts spearheaded by leader award winners honored by DCIIA include LGIMA’s internal program that gives interested non-investment staff roles on the investment team, and MassMutual’s Black and African American Business resource group, which aims to evolve to a sponsorship component that would help foster promotions.

Leader award winners also discussed the business benefits of DEI efforts. Mr. Thompson said the face of wealth is changing, and those who have not been traditional wealth creators now have new needs. “It is not that being a more diverse, equitable and inclusive organization brings more money; it’s that we are meeting the needs to an evolving cohort of people,” Mr. Thompson said.

Moving forward, multiple leader award winners stressed the importance of allyship and support from employees and company leaders. “Amplification and helping each other is quite critical,” Ms. Liu said.

“There’s no magic wand here, it’s constant attention,” Ms. Rodriguez-Ayala said