How to Do DEI When Times Are Tough

Transcription:

Trish Eicher (00:05):

Thanks everyone for joining us this morning. It's been a really great conference so far. I've really had a great time meeting so many of you and spending time getting to know all about what you do in your public finance practices, in your roles as issuers. I really appreciate all of you getting up this morning on the last day of the conference to come and watch us today. I'm Trish Eicher. I am the co-chair of this conference and I am joined today with a great panel of wonderful people to discuss how to do DEI when times are tough. I am also a partner at Orrick. I was until recently the chair of the LGBTQ plus initiatives at Orrick. I oversaw the first ever LGBTQ plus retreat and we've had a pretty regular retreat since then. Also oversaw some changes in policies and other items that our LGBTQ plus affinity group was able to help the firm to implement.

(01:12)

So I'm really excited to talk about this topic today. Statistics and studies have consistently shown that diversity in the workplace leads to better outcomes, not only in terms of the financial bottom line, but also with respect to innovation, with respect to coming up with new and different ways of solving problems with respect to a fair and inclusive society. Despite the benefits DEI programs often face substantial headwinds. In June, the Supreme Court rendered a decision that struck down affirmative action at colleges effectively saying that choosing a candidate, even in part based on race, violated the Constitution. This ruling has significant implications for DEI programs including diversity hiring initiatives. Moreover, even as the US economy continues to grow, economists sound warnings about a looming recession. In these challenging economic times, organizations often face pressure to cut budgets and DEI programs will often take a hit as a result.

(02:34)

I had like to introduce you to my panelists. Starting on the far left, we have Bree Warter, who was appointed Chief financial officer of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in November, 2022 with over 15 years of public sector financial experience. She has previously served in leadership roles in various San Francisco City departments, including the Deputy Director of Finance and Administration and chief financial officer slash deputy director at the San Francisco Sheriff's Department. Bree is also the president of the Northern California chapter of Women in Public Finance and has a strong background in managing budgetary concerns while maintaining DEI priorities. To her right, we have Carmen Vargas, director of US Municipal Finance at Barclays. She boasts 26 years of experience in California public finance investment banking. Her career includes managing and structuring complex taxable and tax exempt variable and fixed rate bond financings for a wide variety of issuers throughout California. Carmen is a champion of diversity in finance as the president and founding member of Latinos and Public Finance, and she actively supports educational initiatives through her involvement with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund to her right, we have Carmen Vargas, director of, sorry, I'm backwards. Sorry.

Chris McKay (04:03):

We did that on purpose.

Trish Eicher (04:07):

Yeah, they switch. I swear. I swear. No, I backwards. We have Carmen Vargas, sorry. Christine Choi bringing over a decade of experience in capital planning, ongoing debt, portfolio management, transaction management, and strategic financial planning for municipal clients. During her tenure at PFM, she has been involved in the debt structuring and issuance of over 10 billion in bond issues. Christine is actively engaged in promoting diversity through her roles as vice president of Asian Americans of Public Finance and Vice President programs of Women in public finance Northern California chapter. Finally, and definitely not least, we have Chris McKay and that's the right name.

(05:03)

A Managing Director at Citigroup who has an extensive 32 year career in public finance. His experience includes helping US state and local governments and nonprofits complete over 1100 financings raising more than 475 billion for infrastructure and working capital needs. Five of his senior managed financings have actually earned deal of the year. In addition to his work, Chris is actively involved in industry organizations including serving on the board of directors for Asian-Americans in public finance and other key roles with their collective expertise. Our panelists are well-equipped to address the complex challenges surrounding DEI and public finance. Let's begin. I would like to start with asking the panelists to share some of the reasons your organizations focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. If we can start with Christine.

Christine Choi (06:03):

Thanks, Trish. Yes. In terms of importance to our organization, we really believe it's important to reflect the communities that we serve. I think we all agree that our best solutions and ideas come with a diversity of thought and thinking, and we can better serve our communities with that diverse teaming.

Trish Eicher (06:27):

Thank you so much. Bree. Would you mind sharing a little bit about how the organizations you've worked with in the public sector have approached diversity?

Bree Warter (06:37):

Sure. I think working in the public sector, we serve a particularly diverse clientele, maybe in a way that some of the private sector firms don't, and the people that we interact with are a wide variety of people coming to us for a wide variety of services. And I think fundamentally it's really important to reflect back to the community themselves so they feel like they're being served in the way that they need to be served. So I think that's one difference of being a public entity versus a private entity. But internally, I think the motivation is very similar to a private entity. I think one thing as a leader that I try to be mindful of is avoiding a yes culture. And I find that when I'm surrounded by people who already think like me or come from a background that's like mine, we do have this kind of immediate mind meld where we're like, yes, I see you, you see me, we agree. But that kind of puts us in a path where we're already in agreement and we're not thinking about those who might disagree with us because they come from a different perspective. And so I try to be really mindful about putting in the room people who are going to tell me that I'm wrong, push back against what I'm saying or tell me no because that brings kind of the diversity of thought that Christine was talking about.

Trish Eicher (08:02):

I really like that point. It's something about having to explain to somebody who doesn't quite agree with you, that helps reinforce the path that you decide to choose.

Bree Warter (08:16):

I think I find that I feel safe and protected in a space where people already agree with me and I'm like, yes, I love this. This feels great. But then there's a danger in that feeling too comfortable. So part of making good decisions is about making yourself feel a little uncomfortable and maybe even questioning yourself, what did I come to this decision with already caring.

Trish Eicher (08:40):

Great. Chris, would you mind sharing a little bit about how Citigroup approaches DEI?

Chris McKay (08:46):

Sure, thanks. And first off, I'm just very glad to add some diversity to our panel.

(08:52)

We do need some more older people speaking, so that's why I'm here. Well, Citigroup, it's a US bank, but about 50% of our revenues come from overseas and we conduct business in 160 countries. So that global footprint really almost makes diversity, equity and inclusion just foundational to our culture and our success where possible. We need to have globally consistent practices that reflect the diverse perspectives of all the different ities, and we work in that promote fairness so that people can be hired and advanced in their merits, enable city to attract and retain talent and all the geographies and the communities that we serve and really position us to be successful with the clients and the communities that we serve. So it's really foundational for us to be very acutely aware and have it built into our culture With respect to DEI and obviously a diverse workforce that reflects this wide range of backgrounds and perspectives is really directly related to our ability to innovate and deliver results for our clients.

(09:50)

How do we do it? Our strategy generally focuses on career development and mobility. That's very important for folks of all types and races and nationalities, consistency and equity in the employee experience, transparency and data-driven decisions and outcomes. And I think on the latter point, Citi was the first firm to disclose adjusted pay results. And really what did that show? That's basically like for comparison of compensation for women versus men and for minorities versus non-minorities. And back in 2018, the results were actually seemed pretty good. Women were based on these results for adjusted pay. Women were paid in 99% of what men were paid and minorities were paid a hundred percent of what non-minorities were paid. But I think Citi then decided to dig a little further in terms of the results and actually was one of the first firms to disclose raw pay results based on meeting compensation.

(10:43)

And the results weren't quite all that flattering and we were very open and challenging ourselves as standard, but those results showed that in 2018, women were at 71 cents on the dollar to what men were making, and minorities were at 93 cents on the dollar. And that data suggested basically that there needed to be more representation of these underrepresented groups at higher levels within the firm getting in senior roles and basically in higher compensation levels. The firm's obviously been working on that and there's been some improvement now in 2022, women were up to 78 cents in the dollar and minorities 97 cents in the dollar. And really our leadership at the firm has been at the forefront of a lot of this. As some of you might know, our city is led by our CEO, Jane Frazier, the first woman to be the head of a major US bank. And Jane's not just a figurehead sitting still, she's really embarking on a major reorganization and major transformation of the firm to try to improve results for both our clients and the stakeholders of the company. And also even beyond Jane, eight of the 13 board members of Citi are women or people of color. So the firm is very much inculcated the sense of DEI and the importance of it largely because of the footprint that we have and the operating necessities we have as a business.

Trish Eicher (11:54):

So it sounds like Citigroup has really integrated DEI into every factor of its business.

Chris McKay (12:01):

That's true. It continues to be the case, and I think just because of the business we run or the footprint we have, I don't think economic factors or anything you mentioned is going to really change much of that.

Trish Eicher (12:10):

That's great. Carmen, would you please share a little bit about Barclays?

Carmen Vargas (12:14):

Yeah, I mean I would agree with Chris and obviously it's ingrained at Barclays and really at the core of Barclay's focus is people feel they can be themselves and are happier and more productive. So creating an inclusive and diverse team isn't just the right thing. It's also best for business.

Trish Eicher (12:37):

That's great. I know at Bogue you had mentioned it's about being able to be who you are, who you feel you are. We like to use a term, an Orrick. It's about bringing your whole self to work. So even though all of our panelists up here have shared that their firms, the organizations have a commitment to diversity, we are facing these challenges including the Supreme Court decision in light of the Supreme Court decision, there's going to be broad impacts on DEI initiatives as a whole, even though our firms, our organizations are not directly impacted by the ruling, it was specific to universities and their practices for admissions of students. How will that affect our ability to focus on the future? Carmen, I think you had some thoughts on this.

Carmen Vargas (13:51):

I think we don't know the ultimate how it will ultimately affect our pipeline, but I came into this industry through SEO, which is sponsors for educational opportunities. Some of you may know of that internship, and it's basically an internship that creates opportunities for students of color to work on Wall Street. And it's since expanded, it's it's footprint, but really what I don't think that that will stop. And I think the importance of corporations and organizations continuing to sponsor these nonprofit organizations that are sort of boots on the ground like Hispanic Scholarship Fund, those that are actively going out and talking to and teaching high school students. But there also is the risk of high school students just not wanting to even try to apply to anything outside of California, for example. I think since Prop 2 0 9, we've seen California work its way through some of that and I think we continue to see success in diversity within our CSUs and within the regions and all that. And so I think that's fine, but just continuing to support these sort of large scale national organizations that will keep doing the work. I think that's important.

Trish Eicher (15:21):

And so when our pipeline is so impacted in trying to recruit, we have to be more creative about where we find candidates to work with. Bree, as we were discussing before and preparing for this panel, you had mentioned that you have implemented some really great alternative strategies for recruiting.

Bree Warter (15:43):

When you first asked me to be on this panel, I realized I didn't really understand the concept of the title, like DEI when times are tough and then I realized, oh, I'm a public sector. CFO times are always tough. We don't have, when you were saying that you did an L-G-B-T-Q retreat, that would literally never happen in my job. There is a 0% chance of that. So when I was thinking about what programs would we cut when times were tough, I was thinking, oh, we have none. So that's an easy place to start. So I think when you work in the public sector, you come to it with a little bit different mindset because there aren't the resources to do special channels and special opportunities. And so you have to come to it in a mindset of how do I do the every day and make it a routine thing to incorporate DEI into the way that we recruit.

(16:47)

And so one thing that I've really challenged both myself and my direct reports to do and then to push down through the finance and information technology division is one to think about where you're recruiting and to actively recruit at the city, we have a tendency to put up a posting and believe if you build it, they will come and yes, certain people will come, but that is a certain kind of person from a certain kind of group that is already in our pipeline. And if we want more diverse candidates in our pipeline, then we have to go out and find them. And so one thing I've done in all of my recruitments is challenge myself to set aside the time to look for affinity groups, to think about different places that I could recruit to get a candidate that is different than what's in the mold.

(17:39)

And one of the things that I've thought about in doing that is sort of questioning my own assumptions about where a quality candidate comes from. I think there's sort of a knee jerk reaction, particularly once you get into the finance and the legal world. We all know there are good colleges and good law schools and good MBAs, but are those really all of the best candidates? Does it merit our time to look at the Cal States, the ucs, beyond the prestige ucs? Are there positions within our organization where we could recruit at community college because I run a large division that has positions ranging from mine down to account clerks. That's something that I could do, but I hope that someday my account clerk promotes to an accountant, promotes to a higher level accountant, promotes to a manager and then promotes to me. So you really need to be thinking about bringing in candidates who can grow within the organization and creating a pipeline that looks beyond the standard places where we already all look, particularly when those standard places are going to be impacted by external external events like the Supreme Court decision.

Trish Eicher (19:01):

That's great. Chris.

Chris McKay (19:02):

I just wanted to add on to what b Brie mentioned because those things she mentioned obviously are all part of the private sector challenges as well. We've had to become very creative in terms of how we go out and recruit. And it used to be the case you did do postings and everyone would just show up, right? They'd come to you, not really the case. I mean there were times, obviously a lot of firms I know experienced this during the pandemic where it was very challenging. You had a lot of people leaving and a lot of people going, and you just had challenges finding people. And really it raises the standard in the bars. It made everyone really more engaged and more active in trying to be contributing to the effort. It made us all learn how to be much more ful in social media as an example, and knowing how to use LinkedIn and knowing how to mine it and knowing how to make connections.

(19:42)

But it really kind of raised the bar in a way when the times were tough that we have to raise our standards in terms of how we go out and recruit talent. And a part of that is DEI actually, from my perspective, actually helps us in a way because a lot of the candidates that we're actually looking for, whether or not they are part of underrepresented groups, the focus of that, certainly younger generations, DEI, is a very important thing for everybody because it also includes the concept of equity and inclusion, which doesn't really, really, really affects everybody, not just any underrepresented groups. So it's actually been to our advantage a little bit to be that focused on DEI, but I agree with you. You have to be very creative to track the kind of candidates that you really want.

Trish Eicher (20:24):

Brie as our sole public sector panelists. I also have a question. You've talked about recruiting practices for your internal employees. What about selection of outside firms to assist you in public finance?

Bree Warter (20:41):

Yeah, that's a great question. It's interesting because we as a city really do have a value of bringing in diverse groups of people to work for the city as outside consultants. And there are some areas where when we did a recent banking RFP, the treasurer identified DEI and community-based practices as a selection criteria. So that's one way that we can achieve it. And citywide, we have something called an LBE preference, which means if you are a local or in a small business, then you get a certain amount of additional points in the competitive process. And I think that while that doesn't explicitly call out diversity as a goal, there is a nexus between local and small organizations and kind of an overlap between diversity and being small and local.

Trish Eicher (21:47):

That's great. Thank you. Chris, you have at PFM some really great efforts to partner with other diverse consultants. Can you share a little bit about that?

Christine Choi (22:01):

Yeah, I'd love to. Trish, one thing we wanted to share here was we've seen this as a continuous theme from our clients and we think it's noteworthy in terms of having a local business or minority business partner. We at PFM feel very strongly that we want to support our small local business suppliers and have developed policy subcontractor policy as well as a diversity collaborative program to help support small local business sub-consultant firms all across the nation. And we are utilizing this program to partner with various firms and support them and really better serve our clients. Some of the initiatives that we've done are really to screen potential supplier candidates and sub consultants. We have an internal data system that's accessible for all PFM employees and really have a review of sub consults to make sure that the regulatory framework that they operate under is consistent as well. So it really allows us the opportunity to have kind of those go-to partnerships to really work to support our clients.

Trish Eicher (23:28):

That's great. And one of your roles at PFM is to assist your clients with selecting their advisors and counsel and the underwriting firms that they work with. How have you been working with your clients on making sure that they are able to promote their DEI goals in that selection process?

Christine Choi (23:56):

Yeah, no, thanks for asking that. We've definitely seen a growing trend for more of how do we incorporate this in the rubric, how do we think about evaluating firms and how do we support our DEI goals and the organizational goals in that process? So we've seen it vary quite a bit. Sometimes it is with selecting a particular minority firm to help round out the team other places. We've seen it also be a criteria similar to what Bree mentioned, of what are the diversity and initiatives and goals and progress that has been made at your firm and looking at that as another avenue to kind of further support the goals of the organization. But we've definitely seen it be a growing focus and trend, rightly so.

Chris McKay (24:50):

Sorry, maybe I'm speaking too much, but I just wanted

Trish Eicher (24:53):

No, not at

Chris McKay (24:53):

All. Please. It's encouraging to hear both Brie and Christine on that concept. I mean, I think many of us would agree that local business enterprises really help to keep wealth within the community, and that's really a valuable type of objective in terms of retaining professionals and they often do have a diversity nexus. I do think though that larger institutions can also add significant benefits to communities and larger institutions will provide jobs and investments and a lot of banks are required to reinvest in communities, but also perhaps the larger institutions can provide a larger number of jobs and even a larger number of a larger number of underrepresented professionals than smaller firms. Just by sheer numbers, I mean I just observe in our public finance practice in California, 12 of the 17 bankers we have are women or people of color. So when you look at it, large firms can impact in a different way and it's encouraging to hear that folks are considering that.

Trish Eicher (25:45):

That's great. I think we'll go ahead and shift talk about the economy. We've been hearing for quite some time that with the rise of inflation, we were going to have an economic downturn. This was kind of the drum that was beat for the better part of this year and the end of last year. I think that even though we're seeing some signs that the impending recession may not be in fact a recession, there are still signs that the economy is contracting somewhat. And I know organizations are beginning to start to cut programs and think about saving money. I have the panelists talk a little bit about what they have seen either in their own employment or outside with respect to organizations cutting funding for diversity across the board. I'll start calling on people if you don't.

Carmen Vargas (26:59):

With me.

Trish Eicher (27:00):

Go ahead, Carmen. You made eye contact.

Carmen Vargas (27:05):

I know that was the first, quite honestly, I think it's silly to think that you would cut anything with respect to DEI within a tough economy. I've been through some cycles and in all those cycles, Tony, I've worked with Tony, I worked with him for 10 years. I started as his analyst. We had some tough times at the coffee bean in 2008 when Citi was making cuts, and then he found me again. And we have been working together now for two and a half years, and I've never felt more opportunity sort of visibility within a large firm. And I've worked at Latino owned firms and it's been great. And I don't think that I've been pleasantly, honestly pleasantly surprised at the level of focus that Barclays has on ensuring visibility within women. I mean, our team within California, I mean, I think what we're 60% women at this point, and it's great to see having been here in this industry for this long.

Trish Eicher (28:28):

It's great to hear. Go ahead, Chris. I saw you.

Chris McKay (28:35):

I'm talking too much, but I'll make a comment. Certainly I think when the economy gets tougher, there are cost cutting measures that come into play throughout. And I think where we've seen that really impact is they have impact on some of the diversity initiatives. And it really, really kind of cuts back on some of the programming that we can do. But it also, as I mentioned earlier, kind of forces people to be more creative, to stretch the funding. We have to try to really advance the initiatives as much as possible and really for people to roll up their sleeves and put more time and energy and investment into it because the standards, even though the funding might be reduced in terms of running these programs, the standards aren't being reduced. So you have to figure out how to make it work.

Trish Eicher (29:19):

And I'll just share at Orrick, we maintain the strong commitment to diversity, but the programs like the retreats of course have to be put aside. And so it becomes more important to be creative in ways to maintain that connection among those groups. Things like Zoom calls or regular meetings and other sorts of planned events to ensure that people still are able to feel comfortable bringing their whole selves to work while looking at all of the priorities. So we've talked a little bit about hiring practices when approaching the challenges and creative ways of thinking about recruiting. Carmen, I want to circle back to you specifically about what kinds of recruiting practices you think would be helpful in this era where we may not be able to rely on universities, the top universities to have diversity programs in their selection of students.

Carmen Vargas (30:37):

I mean, we've touched on this a little bit already, but I think within Barclays there's definitely focus on continued partnerships with, for example, HBCUs, universities that are serving Hispanic serving focus, and then also continuing and expanding initiatives within plus socioeconomic diverse communities as well as multi-generational spaces. And that's part of what Barclays is calling our core agendas within DEI.

Trish Eicher (31:18):

Great, thank you. We've also talked a little bit about affinity groups and places for people to come together with other diverse individuals at organizations. We've all talked about our experiences as members of these groups. Christine PFM has some really great programs that has implemented in this space. Can you share a little bit about that?

Christine Choi (31:47):

Sure. Yeah, I'd love to. We have six different, what we call significant interest groups or what others call employee resource groups or affinity groups. And nearly 60% of our firm is a member of one or more of these groups. And during the pandemic, we really felt that these, what we call SIGs, brought our firm together in a way that was pretty unique. We have a nationwide firm, we have folks all across different offices, and this was really opportunities to connect in a way that we hadn't before. And so in addition to our SIGs just fostering collaboration and connection, we have advocacy groups within each significant interest group, which has really shaped the policies at PFM as well. We have more expanded leave program fertility benefits as well as the celebration of the Juneteenth holiday. And those all came about from efforts from our SIG groups in connection with our human resources groups. So I'm really, really grateful for those groups and really just the great work that we're able to do to help shape our firm's culture and help make a more inclusive environment.

Trish Eicher (33:21):

Chris, you had some thoughts about best practices with the affinity groups

Chris McKay (33:28):

And I have had the opportunity to be on the board of directors for Asian-Americans and Public Finance along with Christine and many others. She's on the executive committee. And I think for those of you who are at the breakfast this morning, you hopefully got to see and have an enjoyable early morning breakfast, but I think you see a lot of that in action in terms of what we did this morning at a PF. And while there's a lot of missions and the rest, the way I look at it very simplistically is one of the big missions we have is to bring and keep more APIs in the public finance industry. That's one of the main goals that I see in simplifying it, and we've done a lot of that work there. And as we mentioned at the breakfast this morning, two new scholarship recipients this year for our scholarship program named after the Late State Treasury, Matt Fong really to give scholarships to college students to help promote the public finance industry and hopefully get them involved in the public finance industry to keep the talent flow coming in with APIs.

(34:34)

We've had new analysts recruiting partnerships with major firms in the past to help identify what we can see are really high potential APIs and hope that they can be considered as candidates for analyst programs at major firms. We do a lot of networking functions like the breakfast this morning, like the luncheon we're going to have in New York through the holidays. And really a lot of these programs and events that keep making sure that the younger generations see the ability and can identify with pathways that they can be successful and to be retained and stay within this business. So I think that's something that we've had discussions in previous panels in bonard is about how to keep the talent within the industry and how to keep focusing. And that's one of the things that we do. Certainly with respect to just the API community. I'd also just as an add as well, one of my other roles is I sit on the API steering committee for cities, north American Debt and Equity Markets businesses.

(35:28)

And one of the key focuses we have there is development. Really it's development, advancement and promotion. We want to get representation of APIs in higher levels and how do we facilitate doing those kinds of things. So we do give a lot of opportunities for our junior people within our committees and our rising senior leaders to really create, initiate and run with programs and really to give them the visibility and the profile to be doing that within the organization. We don't have senior people stepping in front of them and being the figurehead on programs. We want the junior people to have the exposure and to be associated with creating successful things within the organization. So we try to do that. We also try to develop mentorship programs too and are implementing those as well. So a lot of different things as far as what kind of best practices are. I think that the two I mentioned focus on just attracting, retaining and keeping talent within a certain industry and also giving them pathways and trying to facilitate their continued advancement and promotion within the firm.

Trish Eicher (36:27):

Thank you. Carmen, you've spent a lot of time industry groups, women in public finance, Latinos in public finance. Can you share a little bit about what you can do with those organizations?

Carmen Vargas (36:42):

Well, as Chris talked about, it's really about creating networking opportunities, but also taking it a step further and understanding that it could only go so far as people actually being able to make key decisions in terms of helping or promoting diversity within whether it's an RFP in organizations working on. I mean, that's really the goal of these affinity groups is to introduce an analyst to the deputy treasurer of the state of California and how can that then become a relationship that expands beyond just this luncheon because everyone loves a luncheon, but at some point there has to be some return on the investment. In particular with our sponsors that are supporting, we just relaunched Latinos in public finance and Nixon Peabody, they hosted the whole thing. It's getting off the ground around sort of post covid. We have some board members here, Eric Rodriguez, Benja, Eric with Citi, Ben with the City of Los Angeles, and it's great to see organizations like WPF as far as we've come. There's like 600 members. The conferences are amazing. There's like 500 people. We just had it in DC next year in September, it'll be in San Diego, so it's coming back to California. But it's really important to everyone that's involved understanding that the people that you meet within these luncheons breakfasts, it's really about continuing to support upward mobility of folks within the industry that's going to keep them here.

Trish Eicher (38:34):

Great. Brie, you had some thoughts about affinity groups and ensuring that there's an analysis done or kind of like an introspection done about top down versus bottom up affinity groups and the impacts that those would have on policies. Would you share a little bit more about that? Sure.

Bree Warter (38:55):

So I think I come to the diversity discussion from not maybe a unique place, but I walked into the Asian American breakfast this morning and it occurred to me that there could be people in the room based on what I look like, what's this lady doing here? I don't fit neatly into an affinity group box. My mother's Chinese and my dad is European, so I'm biracial. And there's not a lot of biracial groups out there, and that is a different and unique place to be. I've been married to my husband for 15 years and I was brushing my teeth the other morning and he walked in and he asked me, do you sometimes feel like you're neither Chinese nor white? And I was like, oh my God,

(39:48)

It took you 15 years to ask me this question. And so I think that affinity groups are a wonderful place to begin the conversation, but not everyone feels like they fit in an affinity group. There is so much intersectionality. You can't have an affinity group for every single piece of the Venn diagram. And particularly if affinity groups are organized from the top down or from the bottom up, they come with a totally different ethos and affinity group organized from the bottom up is sort of pushing against management. An affinity group organized from the top down is kind of pushing out management priorities and philosophies and trying to move those through the organization. And so I don't have an answer here, but I think it's just important to be thoughtful about talking. How is the work of the Affinity Group and the interaction of the organization with the Affinity group impacting the people, not just in that affinity group, because tons of people in that affinity group who aren't coming to the meetings or maybe aren't engaged or aren't involved, but that doesn't mean they're not there. And then also that there are all kinds of places where diversity exists that are outside those kind of formal groups that you've named and identified.

Trish Eicher (41:24):

That really resonates with me actually as a queer woman. I spent the first years of my career married to a woman and trying to attend women in public finance events and feeling a little bit like I didn't quite fit. And now being married to a man, people are quite confused about who I am and all of these. And I am a queer woman and I'm still queer despite being married to a man. But being head of LGBTQ plus initiatives, I think that it's important that even though I'm bringing my perspective, that I'm looking around at all of the other members of the group to ensure that everyone feels like they are represented within the group. So that really does resonate with me. Thank you for sharing that. Anybody else have any thoughts on affinity groups, significant interest groups that we haven't addressed? Great. There were a few folks who mentioned mentorships and how important that was. Carmen, can you share a little bit about mentorships that you have participated in your career and how they've impacted you?

Carmen Vargas (42:44):

I wouldn't say I struggle with the notion of mentorship. I mean, I've had mentors, I've been a mentor, but really I do want to talk about sponsorship, the idea of sponsorship and what that means. Someone like Tony, Tony Hughes, I think he's been a mentor. He taught me the business. I was his analyst. Chris, I was an analyst VP for you at some point. Another folks in the room as well. I mean I worked with a lot of you, but what it comes down to is a sponsor is someone who can get stuff done. They're at the table, they're in the room when they're the director, the director of finance, they're the managing director, they're the head of the region that's in the room when you're deciding on picking a team, deciding on promotion, deciding on who's going to get the lead banking role on X, Y, Z issuer. And I think if there are folks in the room that have that, I think it's incumbent upon you to use your power to diversify your team.

(44:06)

I love Ted Talks and one of my favorites is Carla Harris. She's a Wall Street veteran. She's an SEO alum. She was an SEO in the eighties. And one of her famous quotes is, the way to grow your power is to give it away and to use your voice. And your voice is at the heart of it, so use it. So I would encourage that because I've seen it at Barclays, I've seen the power that it has to have a sponsor, and then for me to then give that away to other folks within our department, within our region, it's been great.

Trish Eicher (44:42):

That's great. And there is a unique difference between mentorship and sponsorship because a mentor is somebody that you can go to talk to and hash out problems that you may be having, but a sponsor is somebody who helps lift you up. And if we're looking at organizations with less diverse, even with the initiatives that these organizations have had, all organizations have had for so many years, the management tends to be less diverse than the starting class. And so hearing about how you were very keen to point out that mentorship is great, but sponsorship is where it's at. And so that's where we really need allies. We need those people in management who are less diverse. But by that I mean within your organization, you look around and the people in management look and think a lot like you. We need you to reach down and look at the diverse candidates and your organization to help lift them up.

Carmen Vargas (45:57):

Yeah, I mean, it's okay. It's okay not to be in a diverse group. I often talk to folks that are allies. They're like, man, I don't have an affinity group. And it's good. You have a lot more than I do. And that's why we have these affinity groups to create that opportunity. But we do strongly need allies within this industry to help continue to uplift the diverse workforce.

Trish Eicher (46:22):

Yeah, my sponsor, my advocate, the person who really pulled me up was a white heterosexual male. So it's just so important for those connections to be maintained, to be brought to bear are in that kind of vein. So not only are sponsorships really important, but that's kind of an individual relationship. Organizations can focus on training and other programs internally for underrepresented employees and for people in power. Bree, can you share a little bit about what kinds of practices are important in organizations for training and getting that next pool of candidates to promote, as you were saying, from within? So again, I work at a different organization than everyone else. The vast majority of our workforce is actually

Bree Warter (47:29):

Out on the street, cleaning cars, driving buses, issuing tickets, sorry, thanks for your money. And so we have a sort of built in approach to apprenticeship that comes from the trades. And the transit division has really been focused on building a pipeline by starting apprenticeships. And something that we've been trying to be more mindful of in the one south Ven's world is how do we create that same type of apprenticeship in an area of our workforce that it doesn't come from the trades. And in a shameless plug for an organization that we have worked very closely with for the last decade and that I'm really proud to be a board member for, it's an organization called Genesis Works. And what they do is they identify at risk and DEI youth in the Bay Area, and then they match them with internships in organizations. And what I think is really unique about this program is that before they come to us as interns, they have gone through a whole summer of training of what our office norms and what are expectations around behavior in an office because many of the youth in this program are the first in their family to have an office job.

(49:08)

And so they don't have anyone to pass on that knowledge. And the other really great thing about this program is that it is a longitudinal program and the organization is tracking data from high school all the way through graduation from college and supporting those students along the way. And it's a multi-year internship. So our most recent intern we had through his entire high school and college career. And when he finally graduated, we were all devastated because we thought, oh my God, who's going to do the work this kid has been doing? And he came to us with a high school degree, and this was a really meaningful internship experience. He was doing more than making photocopies or filing. He was doing work that was essential to our unit and it was really important, and he was able to do that because we provided him the skills and he was there a long time.

(50:09)

It wasn't just a summer. And ultimately the skills that he built were so great that I tried to hire him and he told me no, but I think that's a great success. We built his capacity beyond what we could offer. And so I think that that's something to be really proud of. And it's actually, again in a shameless plug for DEI in a time of economic uncertainty. They are a really great resource for really inexpensive price. So if anyone is interested in hosting an intern, please look up Genesis Works online or I'd also be happy to talk to you about them because a really great organization.

Trish Eicher (50:57):

I think we're actually a little bit over on time, so I want to be respectful of the other panelists that will be coming up today. But the time has flown by and I really appreciated talking with each of you today. Thank you so much. It's been great getting to know all of you. And thank you guys so much for being here this morning and listening in. Sorry we don't have time for questions, but I'm happy to chat afterward.