On the Front Lines of Diversity & Inclusion in Financial Services
Can diversity & inclusion program in a financial services organization can impact consumer finance? Brian White, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Homebridge plans to show how it can & will.
source: Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
Someone asked me recently if I’ve experienced discrimination as a woman in financial services. I had to laugh because, of course, I’ve experienced it. Male colleagues have tried to get me fired. I’ve been ignored in meetings while men talked over me. I’ve been given bad projects that my male colleagues refused.
I’ve also been supported & encouraged by male managers and held back by female managers.
Instead of focusing on my experiences, I thought it would be valuable to hear from someone who actually works in diversity and inclusion for a financial services company. Brian “Woody” White has the unique position of having also been a CIO. Here’s my interview with him.
Full disclosure: Brian hired me for my first IT job in a bank.
SC: What’s your current title and mandate?
BW: Senior Vice President, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Homebridge
My mandate is:
Extend the opportunity of homeownership to members of all communities, particularly to underserved communities to ensure access and equality of homeownership across the country; and
Increase the diversity of Homebridge's workforce by 10% by end of 2021, including heightened diversity in leadership roles across the company.
Overall, I will be driving 3 pillars:
Focus on monitoring recruiting and hiring, as well as, examining opportunities to provide business contracts to minority businesses.
Examining our current status through deep statistics (i.e. overall employee base by race, level, age, sex, etc.)
Pushing forward our commitment to underserved populations across this country in terms of obtaining homeownership.
SC: You didn’t take the typical path to your current position as Head of Diversity & Inclusion – can you give me the high-level overview of your path?
BW: Overall my career has been in technology where I experienced limited diversity and much racism over the years. However, outside of my day-to-day, I have spent significant time assisting at the community level in the “equality” space either through time, writing or other media. Also, over the years many times I have been either the “only” or the “first” Black. As a result, I found myself participating in many company internal activities connected to launching or evaluating diversity type training programs. I have seen some programs that should never have launch and others fail due to improper funding. These experiences provided me extensive insights.
When I was at a bank, HR asked me to participate in launching an empowerment program they were trying to set up. I went to all the meetings, fact finding. I went into the first class as a Black Jr. executive. I walk in the room and was given a badge that read “inferior Black male.” They asked me to wear this during the sessions and I said why would I wear this all day? The leader said to me “Everybody needs to know how you feel all day walking around because of racism.” I said “What makes you think that because of other people’s racism I walk around feeling inferior?” I took the badge off and never went back.
Another time, I went into HR I also said “I know you have all the state flags in the lobby but why are you flying a Confederate flag in the lobby? Georgia has another flag for a reason. You know what that flag means for Black people, why would you do that?” What happened? All the flags were removed.
When I moved into online banking, my responsibilities included the EDI platform. All was going well when I took over. Then mainframe transfers wouldn’t happen for some big customers. I had to go to the customers and explain what was happening. Before I took over nothing failed. I hired a programmer to investigate what was going on. It turned out that one of the mainframe programmers who was a white guy was messing up the jobs. We had a detailed audit trail. We packaged up the information and we had a meeting with these guys. My colleague asked if anyone had gone in to use their accounts to do x, y and z on the EDI jobs. One of the guys on the phone called her a “Black monkey bitch”. I told them they would be hearing from HR. I went to HR and heard about how long this guy had been there (at the bank) and how he was the only one who knew these systems. That told me HR wasn’t going to do anything. I talked to the Black HR person. She told me that I had this situation down, but no one wanted to talk about it. If I were to push it, she could lose her job. She told me that it took her so long to get where she was in HR, she didn’t want to get mixed up in this. One day, I got a call from my manager that I had hit a hot spot. I said that I didn’t want to let it go. She responded that they knew that I didn’t want to let it go. She offered me a package to get me to leave. I was angry that nothing would happen. The white guy did get away with it. I made the decision to leave. I had to have employees escorted to their cars because of threats. This is all about racism and IT. The primary reason it was happening was because this white programmer thought he deserved the position I had and I did not.
I didn’t expect the racism part to be so challenging. I’ve always experienced it in every job but I didn’t expect it to be so bad at the bank.
After going through this kind of stuff, I know what I want to do as a diversity officer to make this company a better company. If there are people in the company feeling bad because they are a woman, Black man, Black woman, Hispanic man or woman, Asian man or woman, LGBTQ people etc., I want to know.
Part of this (taking on this new role) is about paying it forward before I retire.
SC: Why do you think having someone without the traditional HR background in your position is an opportunity for your organization and financial services?
BW: Not knowing the backgrounds of others I can only say, many of those that have come before me and have driven much of the Civil Rights Movement I am sure did not have an HR background and have proven to be effective regardless. For me, many things the issues of “purpose and passion” have a lot to do with the commitment any individual brings to the table and I am committed.
SC: Many banks have adopted diversity & inclusions statements and initiated programs. Do you think these statements and programs will actually lead to change? Why or why not?
BW: When a bank or any company decides to focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as a part of the corporate culture, the “opportunity” for change for the company and industry is there. If the decision is accompanied by funding for instructional training, surveys, feedback sessions, live discussion webinars, etc. then the opportunity is much greater. For change to truly occur, everyone must be willing to accept honesty in the conversation. Some conversations will be difficult to hear when discussing how people feel about their work environment. Companies willing to work through those difficult conversations to implement change will create a work environment full of growth and opportunity for all employees. Both inside and outside, this journey needs to be transparent.
SC: Diversity and Inclusion is an inside (internal to the organization) and outside (external to the organization) job. How do you think the inside and outside aspects work together (or not)?
BW: I don’t think in terms of inside and outside. I think each company has its own DNA and must work to figure out how change needs to be examined with that structure. When the proper plan is worked out in terms of what will work best for the company, they need to work towards those goals. All businesses, organizations, churches, etc. are microcosms of society; therefore, outside influences will make their way into internal discussions and those discussions need to be discussed based on the DNA and structures of the companies involved.
SC: How does diversity & inclusion impact consumer finances?
BW: First, having a diverse workforce is the right thing to do. In addition, as we look at the world around us it is extremely diverse in many ways. Companies, whose core goal is to create products and services for its customers, should reflect internally the same level diversity in the world the exists where they would like to sell their product and services. I’m meeting with lots of organizations for partnerships and organizations to help underserved people get mortgages.
SC: Are there any bank or other financial services company’s diversity & inclusion approaches you admire?
BW: All companies adopting a commitment at any level to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are on my list for admiration. At least trying to move the needle is better than doing nothing and driving down the same old path.
SC: How do you think banks should approach diversity in terms of fintechs they partner with?
BW: If banks are working to improve Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, they should expect the same from their fintech partners.
SC: Should they expect diverse leadership team? Board?
BW: Yes.
Who publishes this newsletter?
I’m a former Gartner analyst, now an independent analyst & consultant. I’ve worked in and covered the banking industry for 27 years. I think & write about digital banking — but also indulge my other interests, women in tech, startups - especially those in the US Midwest & South Eastern Europe), leadership & change, and AgTech.
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