FT Adviser's Diversity in Finance Awards are a fantastic occasion to spotlight the change enablers in an influential industry.
It celebrates those companies and individuals who have taken that extra effort to implement and improve diversity and inclusion in UK financial services.
It was amazing to find our company on that list; a tiny company was rubbing shoulders with industry goliaths – now that is surely inclusion.
My background
One should not want to jinx it but over the 17 years that I have been in London, I have been lucky never to have faced any racial abuse. I might have met some people who I felt had the question, 'What is he doing here?', on their face but I would brush off such naivety for the goodness in them.
I was born, raised, and educated in India. I worked in investment firms for seven years until I moved to London in 2007. For the first 10 years, I worked for two funds and a British family office and was blessed to have fantastic colleagues.
In 2017, wanting to bring something fresh to an established industry, I set up Sterling Investment Management.
For UK financial services to be competitive and continue to thrive, the industry needs to be open, for one and all. Sadly, on the ground, this is not happening as much as it could.
SIM cannot control how others behave but we can control our own house. Today, we are a diverse and inclusive platform for people of all backgrounds, to come and learn if they show their eagerness and hunger.
We want to make a genuine impact; tens of interns have been through our system. Our doors are always open to those who want to learn about our world of investment management and have a genuine hunger to learn.
There are still a few factors that we need to work on.
More women
We do not need less men, we just need more women in our industry. Financial services is a thinking job not a manual one.
With more women employed in the sector, there will be a greater variety of perspectives included in decision-making and this is genuinely good for business, not just to meet some ‘ESG criteria’. It is plain common sense, but only for those who understand it.
Experience counts too
We need more women in senior leadership and in the boardroom.
The more genuine approach would be to have an appropriate number of women in the recruitment pipeline of our industry’s large graduate schemes.
We should ensure that new industry colleagues are thoroughly trained and skilled, preparing them to ask tough questions and undertake challenging assignments.
Instead of taking this more progressive approach, many companies are taking shortcuts. They are now actively recruiting women as board members to look good optically.
