Diversity in Finance Awards 2023
All the winners - revealed!
All the winners of the 2023 FTAdviser Diversity in Finance Awards: revealed!
Now in their fifth year, the FTAdviser Diversity in Finance Awards celebrate those companies and individuals who have gone the extra mile to implement and improve diversity, equity and inclusion in their companies.
Financial services companies have worked hard over the past few decades to overcome the traditionally held image of rooms full of white men in suits.
For example, according to the 2023 EY European Financial Services Boardroom Monitor, UK financial services firms have been leading their European peers in terms of promoting women's workplace equality. The study found:
- 58% of board appointments in the UK over the past year were female, compared with 50% across European firms.
- The current gender split of board members in UK financial services firms is 43% female and 57% male.
- This is a 5 percentage point increase from June 2022, when 37 per cent of UK financial services board members were female.
Sadly, films and TV shows too often proliferate negative images of financial services firms, meaning the public still sees the world of finance as 'pale, male and stale'.
What the DIFAs aim to do is shine a spotlight on those companies, large and small, who are working to erase that mental image.
Whether a company was shortlisted, highly commended or an overall winner, the absolute quality of these entries shone through, amid a record number of entries to the 2023 Awards.
The awards promote best practice and the sharing of ideas from across regulated financial services to help others take their own steps towards being more diverse, inclusive and equitable, boosting their business in the process.
The winning and highly commended entries in this year's batch of candidates impressed the judges with their creativity and passion for driving positive change. All those shortlisted should also be acknowledged for demonstrating clear visions for supporting DE&I in their workplace, their service to customers and in their communities.
Companies that were shortlisted, highly commended or eventual winners in this year's DIFAs, set an example for all regulated financial services businesses to follow, whether large or small.
FTAdviser would like to thank all those who entered as well as our amazing panel of judges, and extend our gratitude to the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Personal Finance Society for partnering with us for the Diversity In Finance Awards.
We also give our warmest congratulations to all our shortlisted, highly commended and winning companies and individuals this year - well done!
Read on for some compelling case studies from companies and individuals who were shortlisted, highly commended or winners in their categories.
Candidate Case Studies:
Improving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Case Study: Aviva Investors
Highly Commended: Championing Women's Equality
Aviva Investors impressed the judges with the company's overall commitment to supporting women in the workplace.
The company's diversity, equality and inclusion steering group was established in 2021 and is formed of senior stakeholders from across the business who share a passion for diversity and inclusion and a commitment to creating a work environment in which "everyone can be their true selves".
The targets are to increase female and ethnic employee representation at a senior level and promote social mobility.
As part of the gender strategy and realising that its DE&I objectives required both immediate action as well as long-term planning to ensure cultural change was meaningful and sustained, Aviva Investors launched and pioneered a “term-time working pilot
scheme” for 12 months to attract and retain high performing talent.
Recent work
Aviva Investors partnered with Women Returners and the Diversity Project to run a six-month return to work programme for talented senior individuals who have had a two-year career break and are looking to reignite their professional career within Asset Management.
Over the past four years an average of 75 per cent of participants have moved into a permanent role - a statistic which gripped the judges when reading the entries in this hotly contested category.
Aviva Investors has said the aim is to develop and retain more senior females in leadership roles, and create a strong pipeline to improve female representation in the most senior positions.
"We want to ensure we are retaining and growing a senior pipeline of talent to become the senior leaders of the future within asset management."
We are very pleased to be able to offer term-time contracts for employees with parental responsibilities
The company also created a ‘term time-working’ pilot within its flexible working framework. Launched in November 2021, the term-time working initiative ran until November 2022, across investment and sales, to aid the retention of senior female talent.
Structure of the initiative:
- Leader and Line manager support to pilot within Investment and Sales teams.
- Females work 75 per cent of the time, paid on a pro-rata basis. All holiday is taken off during school holidays.
- Dates are not fixed; this is discussed with the line manager around school holiday dates, bearing in mind business priorities and key timelines.
The holiday is essentially 13 weeks off (plus holiday on a pro-rata basis), split thus:
- 6 weeks during the summer holidays
- 2 weeks at Christmas and Easter
- 1 week off in the February, May and October half terms.
The two females that trialled this term-time working were hired on their return to work, and Aviva Investors said they "continue to grow and flourish in our organisation".
After the trial, this has been embedded under the company's broader flexible working arrangements policy.
Mark Versey, chief executive for Aviva Investors, said: "We have just agreed the new contracts for two female staff who work in the business's front office following a year-long trial.
"We are very pleased to be able to offer term-time contracts for employees with parental responsibilities to help us attract and retain female talent and improve gender diversity.
"The contracts are primarily targeted at female staff returning to work after having children, however term-time working is available option to all employees on leader discretion."
Case Study: Delta Capita
- Highly Commended - Championing Disability Inclusion Award (Including mental health)
- Highly Commended - Community Engagement Campaign of the Year (New for 2023)
What makes a good entry into the DIFAs?
Judges look for quantifiable achievements, showcasing how well a certain initiative or series of initiatives have been received, or how these have led to positive outcomes.
This could be around a single focus - perhaps a particular area an employee resource group has identified as a particular need - or a wide range of initiatives.
Delta Capita was highly commended in two categories this year for the breadth of work it has done across several DE&I initiatives over the past 12 months.
For example, its Grassroots workstream was commended for the work it has done to break down barriers between financial services and young people.
In its submission for Community Engagement Initiative of the Year - a new award for 2023, Delta Capita explained how it had carried out several plans to help "empower students to become the best possible versions of themselves".
This is why Grassroots partnered with Spark! charity on its initiative to connect companies with
schools for a 24-week mentorship pilot scheme.
Delta Capita has been been paired with Gunnersbury School, and employees will mentor a Year 10 student over an eight to nine-week period.
In its submission, it said: "The key aim is to help students prepare for employability, for life post-education, and offer opportunities to learn and develop from the guidance offered by their mentors."
But while it reached out to the community, DC said it also was working on its vision to improve cultural awareness among its own community of colleagues.
The submission spoke of a whole slew of events along these lines, as well as developing partnerships outside of the company, such as partnering with Women in Banking in Finance.
For its Disability Champion submission, Delta Capita spoke honestly about the challenge of merging with another company, and how it took this as an opportunity to develop 10 key values to implement across the merged organisation.
The various workstreams took these values and applied it to their own initiatives that would help support colleagues and foster an inclusive and equitable working environment.
Its submission said: "A key example of this was enrolled in December 2022. A compulsory training module, for all employees, was released on awareness of disabilities within the workplace and how to handle people with certain learning difficulties, like dyslexia.
"In just two months of its circulation, 34.71 per cent of employees have completed it and increased their disability awareness within our workplace."
Case Study: HSBC UK
- Winner - Championing Disability Inclusion (Including mental health)
- Winner - Large Firm - Diversity and Inclusion Initiative of the Year
- Individual Award Winner - Large Firm - Diversity Champion of the Year
- Highly Commended - Diversity Marketing & Recruitment Campaign of the Year
- Highly Commended - Championing LGBT Inclusion Award
- Highly Commended - Championing Religious Inclusivity
HSBC UK and its various departments pulled out the stops this year as the company showcased its sterling work across many categories.
The company won three categories, including the individual award for Diversity Champion of the Year (Large Firm), which went to Ash McBrearty, client integration manager for HSBC UK.
In fact, McBrearty had been nominated by several colleagues, independently of each other, whose submissions spoke of her indefatigable efforts to promote diversity, equality, inclusion and cultural awareness at HSBC.
As one commentator on her LinkedIn profile put it: "You bring passion and drive to everything you do, and you only do things you believe in" - qualities which the judges picked up on as we went through 30 different and all impressive submissions to this category.
The integrated Vicious Circle campaign makes the relationship between homelessness and financial exclusion clear
It might seem as if large companies with deep resources and big HR departments are always going to be at the top of the pile when it comes to diversity and inclusion, but this is not always the case.
Indeed, large corporates often tend to have to work harder and more visibly to show they have made DE&I more than a tick-box exercise to keep regulators and shareholders happy.
HSBC UK certainly showed in its winning and highly commended submissions that it had sought to go over and above during the past 12 months.
For example, the DIFA 2023 judging panel were particularly impressed with the work HSBC UK has done for its Diversity and Inclusion Initiative of the Year Award.
More than 3,000 people facing financial exclusion have been helped over 2022 through HSBC UK's Vicious Circle campaign.
This built on the work HSBC UK has done with Shelter and other homelessness charities, which saw the banking group become the first UK bank to deliver a No Fixed Address service.
Speaking of the campaign, the company's submission stated: "The integrated Vicious Circle campaign makes the relationship between homelessness and financial exclusion clear and demonstrates the role that HSBC UK can play in helping to solve this crippling problem in the community."
Judges are always looking for quantitative detail of how well campaigns have been received.
HSBC UK has come out in force this year
HSBC UK said it had succeeded in creating a national network of HSBC UK branches and charity partners offering the No Fixed Address Service.
What started in one branch has now spread to 144 nationwide – with HSBC UK partnering with more than 204 local charity partners who can act as an identity verifier.
As one judge put it: "This clearly shows how a company can identify a need in the community and dedicate time, resources and passion to supporting the people who are most vulnerable, living on the fringes of UK society."
In terms of its win for Championing Disability Inclusion, the panel was pleased to note the strong figures for HSBC's disability-focused employee resource group, Ability UK. It now has nearly 3,000 members - a growth of more than 40 per cent over the past 12 months.
In collaboration with the wider business, the Infinite Ability programme was launched to support the career of any colleague who identifies as having a disability or long-term health need, as well as anyone who cares for someone who has a disability.
The purpose of this programme, which currently has 60 people within it, is to:
- Improve engagement within this population
- Encourage career progression
- Improve connectivity of the ability population
- Increase knowledge of the ability support functions available.
And with three highly commended entries also under its belt this year, HSBC UK has stood out as a company that is committed to tackling a range of issues affecting diversity, equity and inclusion in its workplace, among its customers and in its communities.
One judge commented: "HSBC UK has come out in force this year to showcase best-practice examples for other companies in financial services to use as a guideline to improving DE&I in their own spheres."
Case Study: HSBC Asset Management
Highly Commended: Championing Gender Diversity
Gender inclusivity is extremely important and HSBC Asset Management was highly commended in this category for the work of Balance UK.
Balance is one of HSBC’s largest ERGs and they are the network HSBC AM uses to drive its gender diversity and representation at all seniority levels and in all business functions.
Judges were impressed at the scope of the work Balance UK had done to help break down taboos around gender, such as launching its Tackling Taboos podcast.
This covers topics ranging from gender stereotyping through to supporting women through the menopause, and throughout 2022 Balance UK has captured the views and opinions of colleagues to help address issues, raise them with management and to set out the company's strategy for 2023 and beyond.
This is a big step in making our colleagues feel more comfortable in the workplace
Another impressive feat was the creation of flagship days to raise awareness and compassion among groups that do not often get their voices heard.
For example, Balance UK's Non-Binary People’s Day event focused on supporting non-binary colleagues and for parents/carers who may be experiencing non-binary conversations. All flagship events were British Sign Language interpreted and included closed captioning.
Another area of focus for 2022 was taking a stand against period poverty. It identified a need that showed more than 86 per cent of UK women have started their periods without having any sanitary products to hand.
In October 2022, Balance helped provide all offices and branches in the UK with free sanitary products in women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms.
Its submission said: "This is a big step in making our colleagues feel more comfortable in the workplace and making our customers feel supported when visiting the branches."
Case Study: Impax Asset Management
Highly Commended: Diversity Champion of the Year (Large Firm)
Darren Johnson cut an impressive figure among the dozens of entries into this category.
The person nominating him spoke to his "tireless focus on race, gender, social mobility and other dimensions of diversity".
In addition to his day job at Impax Asset Management, Darren mentors young people in the industry and, within his own firm, is a member of Impax’s equity, diversity and inclusion group, working to champion diversity inside and outside the company.
His other hats include:
• Co-founder, TalkAboutBlack
• Steering committee, Investment 20/20
• CIC board, Diversity Project
• Board member, St Mungo’s
• Investment advisory board, Comic Relief
• Facing History and Ourselves – advisory board.
In the past year alone, Darren took part in Diversity Project’s Strategy Workshop, called 'How we keep E,D&I a priority for leaders in today’s challenging environment', wrote the foreword for the She2 Wonder Women book, participated in Black History Month, and was the keynote speaker for LGBT Great and InterVest.
Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not
He also spoke at Schools with Investment 20/20, was featured on Mission to Scale’s podcast, judged the Women in Finance Awards, presented the Wealth Manager of the Year Award, and participated in Institutional Investor’s COO & CFO roundtable for COO’s and Heads of Fixed Income.
He commented: "Social mobility has always been important for me.
“The inspiration and motivation for my E,D&I work is a desire to remove constraints holding people back from being able to fulfil their potential in society.
Everything I do is to remove those constraints, such as homelessness, poverty, or E,D&I biases.
"Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not."
Case Study: Legal & General Investment Management
- Winner - Championing LGBT Inclusion Award
- Winner - Championing Race Equality
- Highly Commended - Championing Social Mobility
- Highly Commended - Diversity and Inclusion Initiative of the Year (Large Firm)
- Shortlisted - Diversity Champion of the Year (Large Firm) - Deon Pillay
Legal & General Investment Management is no stranger to the winner's roll at FTAdviser's Diversity In Finance Awards.
But this also means companies that are previous winners have to work extra hard to prove they are building on past success, not resting on their laurels.
LGIM proved to the judges this year that it has indeed made significant strides over the past 12 months to build on and improve on its past successes, and develop new strategies to promote diversity, equity and inclusion across its business.
The win for LGBT+ inclusion, for example, stood out for taking gender inclusion seriously, not just in the workplace but among its customers and the wider community.
In addition to providing healthcare support for gender dysphoria and implementing robust trans and non-binary inclusion policies, all policies are LGBTQ+ inclusive, including paternity, maternity and dignity at work policies.
Embracing hybrid events and intersectionality has enabled us to increase reach and drive scalability.
It has built on its work with LGBT Great and InterInvest, by organising and sponsoring the industry-wide intersectional Allyship training with InterInvest.
LGIM also sponsored industry-wide training event with Trans 101 with Trans in the City, and hosted Lunch and Learn on Trans Visibility, which was an industry wide event with LGBT Great.
The submission said: "Embracing hybrid events and intersectionality has enabled us to increase reach and drive scalability. We were able to extend our training for free to industry peers and work more collaboratively with our global offices."
But apart from events in the industry, internally and implementing wide training for thousands of staff, the company pushed for access to developments and shopping centres to host LGBT focused events.
It has also partnered with charity Just like us, enabling the digital transformation of the Ambassador programme. Some 132 new ambassadors completed all stages - an increase on the previous year’s 101 ambassadors.
The charity has now started to offer virtual ambassador talks to schools, with 16 talks benefiting more than 3,000 young people.
Using his many platforms, he continues to champion LGBT inclusion for ethnic minorities by sharing his personal story, delivering industry-wide intersectional events, appearing on panels and podcasts.
In terms of its win for Championing Race Equality, the company leveraged the support of its ERG, the Culture Club, to establish and celebrate a community of multi-cultural understanding and exchange.
To do this, LGIM carried out a compelling and lengthy list of various events and celebrations throughout the previous 12 months, in addition to updating its suppliers and recruitment process to make sure that diversity, equity and inclusion were paramount.
It also:
- Developed programmes to promoting diversity, addressing issues relative to the recruitment (anonymising CVs, inclusion training for assessors, using inclusive language)
- Created 1-week internship programme for 30 students from disadvantaged backgrounds
- Co-hosted a Introduction to Finance Industry Workshop for 100 children from disadvantaged schools
- Sponsored localised outreach events, such as Citizens Wales and mock interviews
- Launched a data apprenticeship pilot program in LGIM (45% female, 45% minority ethnicities)
- Launched internships for finance and actuarial students with aim of increasing diversity at graduate level
- Became a founding member of Diversity Project with LGIM’s CEO as steerco member
- Delivered FCA paper CP21/24: Diversity and inclusion on company boards and executive committees and recommended best practices
- Launched internal ethnicity targets to be published externally in March 2023.
- Delivered a 2 per cent increase in inclusion scores through employee surveys
- Hired more diverse people, with 21 per cent now from minority ethnic backgrounds.
And for his shortlisting in the Individual Awards, Deon Pillay, head of marketing operations for LGIM, impressed the judges once again for creating a "culture of inclusion where diversity, collaboration and empowerment of, and for, others is embodied".
As the statement said: "Deon helps drive an inclusive culture. He has won numerous awards and has featured on a number of lists in 2022.
"Using his many platforms, he continues to champion LGBT inclusion for ethnic minorities by sharing his personal story, delivering industry-wide intersectional events, appearing on panels, and podcast."
Case Study: Pollen Street Capital
Shortlisted: Championing Social Mobility
Making it onto the shortlist in the FTAdviser Diversity In Finance Awards is a tremendous achievement in itself.
Every year, we receive increasing numbers of entries for the judges to go read and dissect, and Pollen Street Capital's shortlisting in the Championing Social Mobility award is therefore significant.
The judges acknowledged the depth and breadth of the work this company has done in developing its DE&I policy, engaging in better data capture to understand its workforce more sensitively and to help create opportunities for those from a socially disadvantaged background to thrive in financial services.
As the company said in its mission statement: "It is critical that we have a diverse and inclusive workforce.
"Irrespective of how our people identify, where they come from, where they went to school, what their parents did, who they love, their race, their ethnicity, or any other factor that differentiates them, they can thrive at Pollen Street."
Pollen Street’s Founder and CEO, Lindsey McMurray, grew up in Glasgow, where she attended a state school and was the first in her family to attend university.
Building on this background, she has set about ensuring the senior leaders understand what it means to be a diverse, inclusive and engaged employer.
Over the past 12 months, the company hired a chief people officer to lead this agenda around DE&I.
It tightened up its communications and awareness programmes, published its metrics on social mobility as part of its environmental, social and governance report, and hosted employee engagement sessions.
During 2022, it also hosted several ESG & People workshops.
We have leveraged our portfolio network to expand the reach of Future First and drive social mobility
The judges were impressed with the way Pollen Street has been using data to measure and drive social mobility improvement.
Its 2022 survey had an over 80 per cent response rate. Some 64 per cent of respondents had attended state schools - an increase on 2021.
It updated its recruitment processes to embed DE&I expectations, including building relationships with a wider network of recruitment partners to ensure candidate pools are as diverse and inclusive as possible, including those from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.
The company also expanded its flagship DE&I charity initiative with Future First, a charity that supports social mobility by connecting state schools and colleges with alumni who can provide mentoring, coaching, and careers guidance to current students.
The submission stated: "We have leveraged our portfolio network to expand the reach of Future First and drive social mobility in financial services as a whole."
For example, its portfolio company Shawbrook has entered into a partnership with Future First to improve opportunities for young people by giving them insight into a career in financial services and allow the business to connect with up-and-coming talent.
Case Study: UBS
- Highly Commended - Championing Race Equality
- Highly Commended - Cultural Awareness Activity of the Year (New for 2023)
- Shortlisted - Championing Women's Equality
UBS had a strong set of entries this year across several criteria.
For the judges, the stand-out entries were in Championing Race Equality and for the new award of Cultural Awareness Activity of the Year.
UBS was highly commended in both of these categories.
Judges particularly liked the work done by the company's dedicated UK DE&I team, alongside its cultural awareness network (CAN) EMEA to spread awareness of cultures and celebrate them, ensuring all feel welcomed and respected.
We work closely with our members to ensure that we remain relevant
It has grown 18 per cent over the past 12 months in terms of membership, and expanded its reach to create country champions in each area of UBS' operations.
The group created Toolkits to raise awareness of and educate UBS employees about the significance of events across the globe from a cultural and faith perspective. These were shared with more than 3,300 members of the CAN EMEA as well as colleagues globally.
In 2022, it produced its first bi-lingual toolkit for Bastille Day (French and English). Other toolkits covered topics including - but not limited to - European festivals, World Culture Day, Lunar New Year, Bastille Day, International Day of Tolerance, Juneteenth, Easter, Vaisakhi, Diwali, Windrush Day and Black History Month.
UBS said: "We work closely with our members to ensure that we remain relevant and actively seek input on new events they would like covered."
Judges were also impressed with UBS's work in building on previous successes in racial equality in the workplace.
It has created aspirational goals to have 26 per cent of director and above roles held by ethnic minority employees in the UK and 4 per cent representation of Black employees at director and above in the UK by 2025.
It has expanded its UK DE&I Impact Report to increase transparency around the ethnicity pay gap, based on good data gained through the company's ethnicity self-identification, which rose from 82.5 per cent to 85.6 per cent in 2022.
Networking events created in 2022 included a series called UBS Together: Championing Black Professionals, to understand intersectionality.
This is a collaboration between its various internal networks and groups, including UK DE&I, Talent Attraction, Mosaic, Culture Awareness Network and UBS's Mental Wealth employee networks.
Judges particularly liked the way UBS's groups raised a specific need to address the challenges that ethnically diverse women experience.
As a result, it partnered with organisation The Brand Leadership to provide a 24-week leadership readiness programme for women.
Designed to address the unique challenges that ethnically diverse women face, this helps participants accelerate their professional and personal goals through coaching, and supporting them to devise a roadmap for careers and life with purpose.
Congratulations once again to all our winners!
Meet the Judges
Who were this year's DIFA judging team?
Meet the DIFA 2023 judges
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