Diversity and inclusion scorecard: How far along are we

As statistics continuously show that a diverse workforce has better outcomes, the discussion will center on what has been done thus far and what else needs to be done to diversify the workforce in the muni sector.

Transcription:

Chip Barnett (00:09):

Hi, and welcome to the Panel of Diversity and Inclusion. How far along are we? I'm Chip Barnett and I have an extraordinary group, talented people chair the stage with me today. People who have been in the trenches literally and on the front line of change in the municipal bond industry. On the podium with me is Janie Mines. She's senior vice president for inclusion and innovation at Academy Securities Academy is, if you don't know already, a disabled veteran owned investment bank that has a special mission to train, hire, and mentor Post nine 11 veterans. She's a graduate of the United States Naval Academy owns the only African American female in the first class of women at Annapolis. She was picked to participate in Sloan Fellows program where she earned an MBA from MIT. During her military career, she was among the first generation of women officers to serve on board the ships of our country. Also here today is Eric Gutshall, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Facilities Authority and the State Public School Building Authority. He oversees the issuance of bonds to educational institutions in the state. Previously he worked for Governor Tom Wolf. He's also vice president of the League Foundation and organization that awards scholarship college scholarships to LGBTQ individuals. Rachel Washburn is head of the Geopolitical Intelligence group at Academy Securities. She's also vice president on the deck capital market team. She's a former US Army captain who served six years active duty as an intelligence officer and was deployed twice to Afghanistan. She was a member of the cultural support team which was and one of the first women selected to work with special operations teams in Afghanistan. And we had Derek McNeil. He's the senior managing director at Seabrook Williams Shanken Company. He has over 25 years of experience as a municipal finance generalist and has senior managed transactions for issuers in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia. Okay, let's get started. We're here today to discuss diversity and inclusion. So looking at our industry today, how do we drive involvement of management with working people? How do we make the workplace an appealing place for people to be attracting diverse talent and also keeping it? Jamie, can you go first?

Janie Mines (03:05):

I'm just really pleased to be here today and that's an interesting question. I was talking to a group last night about that quite often we separate people on what we considered be people issues from business issues and in the business environment that is just not practical. If you want both things to be sustainable and to reach their goals, the people issues are just as important. People deliver results. People are the ones who come in every day to do the work, and the more included they feel, the more empowered they feel. The more information they have, the more you value them, the more that they contribute back to the organization. But you have to be very deliberate about it. So if you have things that you're working with with your people, you need to tie those things back specifically to how they impact the performance of the organization. So how does it tie back to if we have initiatives to do a major program and change management as a piece of it? If you realize that most programs fail as it relates to return on investment and they've identified that a big piece of that is that the people never adopted it in the organization, then you tie that back and you do the things you need to do to work with your people to get them involved to make sure they're included. So one of the key pieces from my perspective is tying that back to the actual performance of the organization and have every people project it's the right thing to do, but it's the right thing to do from a social as well as economic perspective in the performance of an organization.

Rachel Washburn (04:48):

Well, my thought, just to build off of Janie, it really is a top-down approach with the work and the sustainability of any sort of DNI initiatives comes from creating space, allowing that talent, letting them be empowered to work within the framework that the top has established. So really just to reinforce Janie's point of view that yes, maybe the philosophy or the values start at the top, but the work of diversity is allowing your people to feel empowered to sustain those efforts within an organization.

Eric Gutshall (05:21):

Well, thank you so much for including me on this panel. I go by the pronouns he, him, and here we are on Groundhog Day. As a Pennsylvanian, I'm pretty proud that (5:30) gets his attention once a year and we're kind of going through Groundhog Day with this panel topic. D E I has been something we've talked about for so long. We've talked about it conceptually and we've thought about how we implement it in our own organizations, but frankly, we have a choice. Unlike (5:50), we have a choice to either say, we're going to come out and address this now we're going to go back into our ground health hole. And I think it's important that we think about how we run our organizations just to build off of what has already been said. You know, have the people portion of this and you have an operation portion of this just as already has been said. But I want to take a look at the people portion first. And if we think about this from a PR standpoint, I think the public finance needs to do a better job of selling what we do. I think when it comes to recruiting diverse talent, we need to be able to go out and say what we're doing. As someone who has been in government and politics pretty much my entire career, I have seen many people who take credit for a lot of things they haven't done. I think public finance needs to take credit for things they are doing. And I think elevating our profession and highlighting the things that we've done, we've built roads and highways and bridges and we've built schools and hospitals. I don't think the public understands that and I don't think we have enough folks engaged in understanding what we do to be involved or want to be involved in public finance. So, I'm taking a step back and starting at a very elementary ground level to say, I think we need to do more when it comes to recruitment, not only for finding diverse talent, but getting folks engaged to understand that we're out here and what we do. I think we need to be very intentional about the steps that we take. We cannot just flip a switch and say, oh, our organization is diverse. Our organization has equity, our organization is inclusive. That's not how this works. As an organization, you have to take long-term strategies and implement them over time that's going to result in something that's meaningful and powerful. That's something that's going to make you better over time. And then not to take up too much time, but I think there are a few other things from the employee perspective. We think about mentorship, we think about scholarships. I'm involved with an LGBTQ scholarship organization. How do you get folks early on? How do you take time to invest in people? That all drives the culture and that all drives what the look of your organization is. Representation matters and so we need to make sure that we're filling it with the right pieces. So I have a lot more to say on that. One final thing that I want to get across in this portion just to kind of level set, we talk about D E I and we pick apart the three different kind of words of D E I, but I really want to focus on equity. The US Department of Education defines equity as a student, gets what they need when they need it in the way they need it. And if you apply that to our own organizations, what does an employee need? When do they need it and how do we deliver that? And I think that's really important in understanding how we can make more equitable boardrooms, more equitable meeting rooms and making sure that our employees, whether they're in our space or we're trying to attain them what we can do to make our organizations better.

Derek McNeil (08:50):

All right. Good afternoon. Again, thank you Chip for inviting us to the panel. To piggy back off of what Eric was saying, the key word is intentional. You really need to be intentional about what your goals are and very clear. And that means you need to define what those D E I goals are and what are you looking to achieve and put some metrics in place in order to measure those. You also have to share what I like to call a consciousness, this d i consciousness where your procurement officers, your hiring folks all share that same vision and understand why diversity, equity and inclusion is beneficial to whatever organization, whether you're an issuer or whether you're a bank or whatever have you. Again, very intentional about that and make sure that employees are very clear about that and they share those visions. Also, you need to have advocates internally within your organizations to growing up in Wall Street, I've been in 25 years, used to be used to have used to have an old white male as an advocate. That's changed as we bring in more diverse individuals, women African Americans, Latinos or whatever have you. They too need to see that there are Latinos, African Americans and not even just ethnically but socially as well. I'm a Brooklyn boy, single mom prep school on scholarship. Great. Life's been great. My story's great but I've taken upon myself to reach down and pull up when I happen to work for a Latino, African American woman owned firm, put us in whatever box. We're a great firm that just happens to be minority owned but I tell folks all the time, put us in whatever box you want to be in. As we recruit folks, they can see Henry Cisneros first Latino mayor of a major city. Oh wow. I can identify with that. Suzanne Shank, African-American woman from Savannah, Georgia who took a firm with Muriel Seabird and Napoleon Branford and grew it to where we're top 13 senior manager last year doing senior managed transactions. So you can see that I can see a Latino male, I can see an African American woman. So again intentional advocates and make sure folks share the same consciousness about what your goals are, but you need to be clear about what your goals are as an organization.

Chip Barnett (11:23):

There's always been a lot of discussion about what's next. What do you think are some of the best ways to move forward to keep the momentum moving ahead rather than seeing the pendulum just swing back at for Rachel?

Rachel Washburn (11:41):

Yeah, I think that's a really important question because I feel like we're potentially at an inflection point right now with the focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And one of the things that I think is a really constructive way to think about all of the momentum that we are should be building of is expanding the viewpoint on how your organization looks at diversity. You take stock of what you've done and how you can continue to build on that. The pendulum should not swing back. We should continue to use momentum, evolve, refine programs that are already established. This is a effort that's about solutions. So how do you expand your viewpoint around what you think of diversity? Are you making sure that your diversity is on backgrounds, education, diversity of thought that once you've made some progress, continue to build on that progress and really take a critical look about the work you've done and how you continue to be constructive moving forward?

Derek McNeil (12:35):

Yeah, again, I totally agree. Again, being intentional keeping score I look around the room and I look at some of the issuers that have kept sort of the momentum going. I look at sauna from New York City, I look at Pam Fredericks from Battery Park City Mark Kim when he was met DC Water Eric in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. There is some growth, but we can't rest on that. We have to share success stories as well. So if you're a D E I and you happen to do a billion dollar deals as senior manager, some of the firms will tell you you can't hire MWB to do a senior managed deal that large cause they don't have the capital. Not true. So when we do do well and we do perform well we need to get on our soapbox and we need to make sure that we're celebrated for that and so that folks understand there isn't just one way to do things. We all know diversity, equity, inclusion brings about efficiency, brings about new ideas, innovation. So we need to continue to support that.

Janie Mines (13:48):

It's interesting Steinbeck has a quote that says if, and I'm paraphrasing, if you tell a story, everyone, in order for people to absorb it and be involved in it, they have to feel included to it. Included. It has to be something that they can relate to. And whenever you tell a story where people don't feel that way, the story fails. America is that story. We are a story of very diverse people, different background, different perspectives, and I think in a lot of our initiatives, I've lived long enough to have been through a few cycles of this. We didn't always include everybody, we talked inclusion, but all everybody in our population were not an active and we're not sometimes necessarily even welcome as an active participant. It me for it to work. And I think that was a huge lesson learned because some of the pendulum swinging back is so is those who have felt that they were not part of that solution being left out reacting to it is just like Steinbeck said that for our story to succeed, for us to move together, whether we and Rachel and I are very national defense focus and so that was just a part of our world. But for us to be able to succeed, it has to be a discussion where everyone is involved, everyone's responsible, and we all move together in making our country as well as our organizations better.

Eric Gutshall (15:23):

So two pieces there I just want to address first is every organization is different. Every organization is going to need a different plan, a different strategy of how they tackle this and how they make the organizations better and stronger and more diverse. So I think there's no kind of set 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and an organization needs to follow to do this. There are many different ways to do that and I think the more people you can include in as part of that discussion, as part as that strategy, the better off you're going to be. There have been numerous studies that show the more diverse team that you can build to solve a complex problem, the better answers you get. It's literally shown. And so if you do the same thing for addressing diversity, you're going to be fine. The second piece that I just want to hit on is that I think we have so many external pressures right now as an LGBTQ individual I get scared by some of the news stories that I see in certain places around the country of hiding my history and hiding my past and trying to hide who I am. And so I think being able to work in teams and with other organizations that recognize diversity and recognize the struggles that we're facing today, I think is going to be incredibly important going forward. We are living in a very volatile political climate. All of you are certainly aware of that and I think if we can create safe spaces that recognize that address that and help individuals be themselves and thrive, that's how we succeed. So I think it's going to be important to organizations to wade into that fight.

Derek McNeil (17:02):

Hey Chip, you don't mind if I just want to also note that FINRA, MSRB have truly taken on the d EI initiative. They've held a series of workshops over the past couple of months. We think we ended last week in Washington DC and to see Mark Kim to get up front in front of a room full of diverse individuals and talk about the MSRB and its charter and he said it's in its charter to make sure that the playing field is leveled across the financial industry. So again, 25 years plus in the business to actually hear folks really talking about this and really digging deep, not just the surface of things but really deep, how do we really make things better for MWBE's in the space designation policies, make sure you get access to bonds and things like that. So again, just to let you know that the, It's encouraging to see finra, I think FINRA also has an advisory board right now I think of 14 individuals that are looking at some of the issues with regards to D E I and inclusion. So just wanted to point that out.

Chip Barnett (18:10):

Let's turn to the human side for a second. The personal side the people who make up our industry. Could you share some of your stories and experiences with us? Janie.

Janie Mines (18:22):

It's been blessed with a interesting life being the first black woman to go to the Naval Academy, having the opportunity to work on committees like the Defense Advisory Committee on women's services. I'm a big Rachel, she's my shero fan because we had the opportunity to open crack some doors open and she, her generations came in and stomped them down. So I, got a lot of stories about diversity inclusion and how I've seen corporations make huge mistakes because everybody sitting at the table look just alike and they went out to a diverse market with a plan and the market reacted negatively. I've got stories about getting ships underway where it was an 18 year old semen in the back of the room who came up with a solution. But had he not felt that he could speak up in that environment, we'd have been in trouble. Generational diversity, diversity of thought. Diversity is a broad umbrella and there are so many, when we lose a perspective of anyone, we bring people into organizations because we think they have the ability to contribute. So when they get in there and they're not contributing, it's not just their fault. If somebody's sitting there and you think, well, they're not living up to their potential, have you talked to that individual and find out what's holding them back? Or did you just make a snap judgment because of maybe how they looked or their gender or their interaction that they just weren't talented? So it is incumbent upon us. I've had the opportunity to lead groups from 5 to 600. It is incumbent upon us to know everybody on our teams to know their skills, strength, interests, and to be able to channel all that towards delivering the results of the organization as well as meeting their professional needs. And when we have an environment that works like that, there will be so many personal stories and professional stories of success. We won't be able to count them all. But I won't get into all the details of my personal stories cause I'm too old and you'd be here too long.

Eric Gutshall (20:35):

Well, I have two one's about me and one's about someone else. The one about me when I first got into this job and, I've taken the lead of Jennifer Fredericks and have done the conference circle and circuit, but one of the first conferences I went to when I was in this job, I walked in the room and I realized, there's no one here that has my lived experience. There's no one here that I can relate to. There's no one here that can really understand me. And I was startled by that and it wasn't a Bond Buyer conference just to be clear but it was startling. And I had a moment of pause to think am I supposed to be here? Am I in the right place? And I used that as a moment to actually push back and say, you know what? This is a chance for me to educate others. It's a chance for me to use my voice, use my past as a poor gay kid from rural Pennsylvania who had no one around him, who had no voice, who had no chance. This is now my moment to be able to share those experiences and to make organizations better. So I think it's, a moment of excitement for me. While it's also scary. And for the other individual a dear friend of mine who is a public finance attorney, they love to tell their story about how they chose the law firm that they went to work for. And as they were doing their search and getting involved in public finance, they had two offers from two separate law firms. And they were pretty much the same offer. I mean salary was similar, benefits so forth. And so I said, well, what was the final thing that made you decide to go work for the law firm that you're with? And they said to me, Eric, it really came down to one thing, the co-lead for the public finance section of that law firm was a woman of color. I wanted to go work for the woman of color and that's why I chose that organization. And so representation matters. It matters that we have the right people in place that can connect with others. And so it's going to make your organization better. It's a business decision has been said and I think it's a place to show that you can make your employees feel welcomed and included.

Derek McNeil (22:49):

I got a lot of stories to tell. I won't share all the stories, but I will say where I sit now and even other organizations from Merrill to Morgan Stanley, I have always kept a consciousness in that I look again to pull up. So Wall Street has really been access to information. Most folks growing up, if you don't have an uncle who worked on Wall Street who's a salesman or whatever else, wall Street is this place that you can never really reach. So I've taken it upon myself. Not everyone does, but I take it upon myself to look, to educate, let folks know you can do. This isn't rocket science, you just need to prepare. And so what I've done in the past, I'd say the past 20 years I do, it's actually slowed down a little bit. So every year I would take what I would call, excuse the vernacular, a project maybe a sophomore or junior in high school that wants to work on Wall Street. I would have them, I'd take time once or twice a week, they'd come into the office, I'd sit them down, I'd mock interview, I'd ask them questions. So I would do things like that. And then I also would take what I would think not to be a project, so a real hardworking kid male, female, whatever have you. And it wasn't always about color as well, that's the other thing. It wasn't always about color. Just if you were hungry and you were disadvantaged, I would take the time and do the same thing and also connect them to some of my colleagues at some of the other firms as well. So again, right now we talked about the pendulum swinging the momentum. I take it upon myself where I sit senior managing director, head of region, I coach basketball, I'm a social engineer at heart, but as a banker, it's part of my persona. It's Incumbent upon me to educate those that don't understand what's going on Wall Street to let them know that there are opportunities and within the organization I look and it's hard nowadays with harassment and all the other things to be real personal with people. But I try to find those opportunities and people that I work with know that to really listen and give support. So I think that's important. Again, no, no tragedy. I just look at it as where I sit now, the story's still being told and I take it upon myself to continue to add to that story. Success stories.

Rachel Washburn (25:16):

Well, if I may take you back about a dozen years, my first professional experience within the Army was a very clarifying example of how if you don't embrace diversity, you can't properly accomplish your mission. So I was part of a very small contingent of women that were recruited all around the military to be part of a pilot program that would attach them to special operations units in Afghanistan. We were at war in Afghanistan for a decade at that point. Yet the forces that be realized we weren't accessing 50% of the population in Afghanistan, a country that we were trying to build governance in. And you weren't speaking to the women in that country. That's a pretty big problem. And if your male operators and soldiers can't speak to them, well who will? So I was part of this group of 50 women that were out of this part of this great experiment and this was all before the combat ban was lifted and women weren't allowed to be operating these positions. And so it was kind of done secretly for the first couple years. And we were extremely successful. We were given a chance, not a ton of tools just in opportunity and we thrived. And the amount of information and the progress that was made in the short time that that program was existing was extremely profound. And obviously it was something that gains momentum allowed women to compete for all roles within the military and now is just standard. There's no role not to women. And so that I think is just a great example that if you keep people out for arbitrary reasons, it impacts the mission. You are not going to be as successful. To me that was just such a profound moment in my young mind to always remember that. Are you looking at the whole picture? Are you utilizing all the talent in front of you? Fast forward that to how I landed at Academy Securities. I think it's another great example of thinking creatively using talent that maybe would be overlooked. When I first started Academy, I had no business joining a broker dealer. I knew so little about capital markets. My only understanding of a bond was like a war bond in World War 2. And yet they took a chance on me because I had a skillset understanding the geopolitical risk landscape. And they gave me an opportunity to sit in a seat and grow a program that would be an asset to our clients to look at problems differently, to think about geopolitical risk and how it impacts the market. And ultimately grew into a role where I could be a coverage banker and really grow that skillset. And again, without the freedom to think that this person has some raw talent, we can form it. I wouldn't have had that opportunity without some of that really expanded thinking by the organization to use a skillset that maybe is tangential to what we think we're trying to accomplish and bringing into the fold and the fabric of the organization.

Janie Mines (28:11):

And just to elaborate, it's hard to imagine sometimes from where we sit about stories like Rachel's and just imagine a SEAL team and what that's typically like and then dropping a woman into it who's got to help on the intelligence and getting them ready and helping them to operate in an environment and how by bringing her in. And quite often in the military, we brought women in when technically women weren't in a combat. We used to serve on ships for 179 days, get off one day and get back on the next combatant ships. To have to understand the need, to understand that you need just in everyday operations, different kinds of people doing different things to meet our public and our clients' needs and to have the ability to do that because your organization is so diverse, you can pull people in when you need them. It was for Rachel from Rachel's perspective, it is such a value to the nation. And then as she came to Academy Securities and in all our organizations, it can be an immeasurable value to have those types of teams and it can impact your bottom line if you allow them to come in and contribute to their full potential.

Chip Barnett (29:30):

Eric, as a LGBTQ individual, how do you think an organization can give support to people to make them feel welcome, comfortable, and accepted as themselves?

Eric Gutshall (29:46):

Yeah, well I don't know if it's specific to just LGBTQ people. I think these concepts kind of go across the board, but I want to start with some good examples. I think back to an event that occurred during LGBTQ history month and it was led by an organization called Muni Pride and Northeast Women in Finance. And they did it right here in New York. It was fantastic. It was over 150 people attending that first of its kind event. And it was a great opportunity to one, celebrate one another and two, recognize history. As I've already mentioned there are a lot of political attacks going on right now against LGBTQ history, black history and otherwise. And I think if we find ways to celebrate one another, that's really important. We need to take negatives and turn them into positives. I think some of the other pieces are just, you know, can be a subtle hint. An individual I know working for a law firm, they put their pronouns on the website. It was the first person to do that. And many people kind of glanced and thought, well what does this mean? And it really means a lot to an individual to see them and understand them and respect them for who they are. I'd also say things like contracting for your organizations. We've been kind of people focused in this conversation, but I had the distinct privilege to serve on the transition team for Pennsylvania, governor Josh Shapiro who just took office. And one of the things we were trying to address is how do we increase the diversity spend for state contracts? Millions upon millions of dollars get driven out through contracts, whether they be for rulers or whether they be through legal services or how are we making sure that small diverse businesses or diverse businesses in general are getting part of that? How are we lifting those folks up and including them in our government spend and our organization spend? So I think off of that, what's important too is working with our affinity groups. So affinity chambers, chambers of commerce and others to make sure that we're getting their feedback and how we operate and what we can do better. I think another thing is addressing how we talk to one another and our workplaces and our organizations. There's a lot of talk about microaggressions and unintended comments and how they can come across. And I think it's really important to address how we talk to one another and understand one another. I think about a book that I'm reading right now about highly successful and high performing individuals and what makes them so successful. And really it's about adapting. It's about learning and it's about fostering a good climate for one another. And all of those concepts go right back to DEI efforts. And I think it's really important to understand that we may never have understood what a person's pronouns were, but now you can see them, understand them, respect them for who they are and we can share our own. And so I think that's one little subtle way and I think all of these little pieces can add up to making your workplace even better.

Chip Barnett (32:51):

Well, what do you think are some of the lessons we've learned about creating and maintaining a diverse workplace? What has worked, what hasn't? Anecdotally, I've heard some people say there's a diversity equity, inclusion, fatigue pushback against these initiatives. What are the implications of this?

Janie Mines (33:20):

We talk about some of the lessons we've learned, and one of the ones I mentioned earlier was that it needed to include everyone. I have mentees that cover the entire spectrum as it relates to diversity. And so I get an opportunity to listen and learn from all the different perspectives. And it has been interesting just speaking frankly with the perspective I've gotten from white males over the last couple of years. I've spoken at events where the white male was the one who walked up with tears in his eyes and said, this was the first time I felt included in over a year. We're coming up and as we move forward and we come up with solutions involving everyone is important. I had a four star general say to me not that long ago. He said, it's a white man, white man's problem. It's not going to happen until we are actively involved in, I little gave me a little attitude with that. I'm like, you're, it's not saying that I have no self-determination in any of this. And then we talked and I thought about it and he say, he was saying, I can't do it without you, but you can do it without me. The things you're talking about changing fundamentally I control in this society and unless I'm part of the solution and I have the ability to work with you to move forward, it's not going. But so far and I had to face the reality of that and it wasn't because my personality and my understanding and my experience says that it every, to move an organization, a country forward, if everyone's not included, you're not going. But so far he just put it very directly. It made sense to me. So one of the key lessons, Lauren, I think from our last cycle is that we don't get to just leave people out because we don't like what history is said about them. We don't like their current position. I had an interesting conversation recently with a gentleman who was the head of the Klan in certain part of the country and was I didn't realize he was that. And when I came up to spoke speak to him, he was just actually a World War II vet and all these people were standing around. You remember being on the playground where there's a big circle cause people waiting for a fight. So that's what it, I didn't, I'm clueless, da da da da da, just walking over to speak to this man and show my appreciation. People had kept telling me after the speech that he wanted to talk to me. So I walked over to him and I just said to him how humbled I was. World War II was tough, how humbled I was to meet him and how much I appreciate the sacrifice he made for his country. And I'm sure that he had made sense. Then I did not realize he was a Klansman. And I said, can I hug you? And he said, oh, okay. So I hugged him and I thanked him and I gave him a gift and left because I was on my way to something else. The guy called me who did that event and just laughing on the phone. He said that cause the person said how much he enjoyed and stuff, he said, that's the first time I've ever heard that man say anything good about a black person. He said he couldn't overcome the love. So it was, and I've talked to him since then and of course we don't agree on everything but we're talking and I'm hoping that through that conversation the next time he engages a minority or a woman or as in a position to impact them, that he'll pause because we took the time to try to understand one another's perspectives. So we won't often, sometimes we won't like what other people have to say, we won't share their perspectives, but if we don't talk understand one another, just like we have to do every day on our jobs, if we don't take the time to do that, our progress will be significantly stifled and will continue to go through these cycles over and over again.

Rachel Washburn (37:32):

Well I don't know if I have anything profound, It's everyone's obligation, but I'll let someone else speak.

Derek McNeil (37:41):

I was going to say I didn't want to come behind that. What I will say is lessons learned. I'll tell you from a positive side perspective in that at least from where I sit in the firm that I sit at we've had great success. We've had great success with expanding buyer bases tightening spreads relative to some of the bulge bracket firms. We do this all day every day. It's because it's important to us. We may not get a second chance. So when we get the pencil on the transaction we work it very, very hard. Both desks, the entire sales force to get the client what it wants. So again, lessons learned when you hire good firms that will focus on that client and not just be one of many deals, you will get good execution. And so I'll say that that's a lesson learned. Hire us, we do good jobs.

Chip Barnett (38:41):

Do you feel you have to keep proving yourself everything?

Derek McNeil (38:44):

We talked about this earlier, right? We were talking earlier about we always feel as if we have to prove ourselves. So say for an example you do an RFP minutes to speak. So I've sit on both sides, bulge bracket, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch loop. So when you walk in there's a bulge bracket. Most of the time you don't have to spend that five, 10 minutes to introduce who you are. Folks, I've seen folks walk and say, well who we are, let's get right to, let's cut right to the chase. We often feel, and I'm trying to get out of this and Laura can relate to this as well, when we do our interviews, my thing is look, they read the RFP, they wouldn't had us here if we didn't qualify, but we still feel compelled that we've got to prove that we belong here. So that's something that we constantly and I think that's something as whether you're a woman or whether you're Asian, you always have to prove that you belong even when you've earned it.

Eric Gutshall (39:51):

I would just say that people are policy, people are values. And so I think you need to think about what your organization's values are and really put that to the test because that's the point of all of this. I have a friend who says quite often people closest to the page should be closest to the power. And I think we can use that as a statement for organizations as well. What lived experiences do you want in your organization and how do we solve complex problems using that?

Chip Barnett (40:22):

Okay, we have some time for questions so if you want to talk to the panel, please wait for someone with the microphone to come over and ask you questions. Okay,

Audience Member 1 (40:35):

Good afternoon everyone and thanks you. Thank you very much to the panel. There is an immigration side, so this debate and I don't know if it's okay for me to bring it up. So I moved to the US seven months ago. I used to work in Nigeria and I used to run an investment banking. I used to run the capital markets and advisory team and I advised government, banks, corporates, various sectors. And I moved because my wife got an opportunity to work here as a doctor in the US and I thought it was important to move. I've been here several months and I've been applying to investment banks nearly every day. AB three, four applications a day. I've gotten few responses. None of them is from an American institution by the way. I've done, I've finalized my second master's degree so I'm probably not the smartest guy in the room, but I don't know zero. Right? So the question for me, and so it's an important question for me. So the good thing, so let me put it this way it leaves the impression that one feels very locked out of an industry that one's very passionate about. And just to bring it in another side to the same issue I think of all the guys in tech who's who've been laid off for the last three months or so, a lot of them are Indians on H one B visa's and they have 60 days to find new jobs before they leave the country. I can't understand how that is fair or how that makes sense. And I think it's an important event because I think America needs skilled immigration is a debate about how that will happen. I have a lot of friends and family who moved to Canada in the last two years. There is a clear path for a skill, highly skilled person as to how you can move to Canada. It may take a year, take some time, but once you get that permanent residency card you can move and within two months you get a job. I'm here several months, I haven't gotten time of day. I think it's an important debate and something that we need to discuss. Thank you.

Janie Mines (42:44):

Can I touch on that? Was there a question we talked about?

Audience Member 1 (42:47):

I think the point is around the migrant side of things. So those who come from other countries who are skilled and sort of have the skill to join the capital markets investment market industry, how do we integrate them and bring them in and add them to that side of the inclusion of the inclusion debate? Thank you.

Janie Mines (43:09):

I don't know if I have all the answers to the last piece of that but it's a good question. I was in a conversation last night where we talked about in our industry and in other industries trying to enter and work in an industry in what we call off cycle should in our industry, a lot of times you've gone to a certain school, you've done certain internships, you've been associated with certain companies and if you've done those things the next progression is to be hired into an organization and that off cycle behavior. I have a lot of mentees who are active duty military and if they're creative and innovative and step off that career path for a minute to be a congressional aid or White House fellow, it's hard to get back on and then be promoted. And we talked about the level of value that we lose by taking that perspective. We say we want it diversity of all aspects, yet we only go out to the same places having the same kind of people who think the same way that we do and fail to realize the opportunities and the loss to the operation of our organizations when we don't look at the people who may not fit that current mold and maybe have something new and innovative to bring to our organization. To have someone for example like this gentleman who can look at markets from a totally perspective probably than anybody else in your organization. And cause we have algorithms to even talk to people and he is potentially off cycle, we never even know he exists. So there needs to be a forum that allows people to get around those hiring and recruiting algorithms so that we know that they exist and we can look at their talents and be able to make intelligent and informed decisions about bringing in talented people who don't necessarily fit into our cycle. Because time and time again has been proven that they can bring some incremental value to your organization. So keep working on it. I was talking to a gentleman yesterday and he said it took him 18 months but he got his foot in the door and his boss was in the room and we said we are so thankful that we found him but our algorithms prevented us from finding about him. It was word of mouth. So keep out there, come to things like this be involved in things so word of mouth can get you past our algorithms so we find out about you and as an industry we need to fix that.

Audience Member 2 (45:45):

So my question is actually for both Rachel and Janie, My sons in the military and he's in the marines in a special unit. So I can't even begin to imagine your experiences. I was at Solomon Brothers in the eighties, that was rough sledding but not close to probably anything what you had to put up with. But one of my questions and we actually got, I got into it with the other day with someone, what about speech? And frankly in my mind what I would call hateful speech and how do you address it? And I had an issue with an employee about something being completely inappropriate speech with a client and he completely disagreed and said I had taken it out of context. I mean that's I guess you're walking or drawing lines in the sand. How do you decide how either do you just let it all out so everybody has had their say in and feels that they had their opportunity to speak or do you set boundaries about what is and is not acceptable? Thank you.

Janie Mines (47:00):

I think that's an excellent question. You do, an organization should talk about what's acceptable, but there are quite often people don't mean it like he's trying to say you took it out of context, whether I took it out of context or not, it had a negative impact on me. So we need to talk about it and it can potentially have a negative impact on other people in your organization and on your clients. And then thereby on your bottom line when we don't understand the impact of how we interact with one another. So you did the right thing. Whether your organization has it well defined or not in sharing with that person the perspective. Quite often when you do that now people are so sensitive they become defensive because they think the next thing is going to be some report from HR telling, saying that they have one of the isms instead of an opportunity to talk through things. So it sometimes for me, what I try to do is let them know right up front, that's not what this is about. This is about me talking to you to tell you how you made me feel and me listening to you to understand why you use that particular language. I had an opportunity, we had somebody who did this horrible Facebook rant where he talked about minorities, women and all this stuff and it was just live headed in his pocket. He didn't know he was doing it. He broadcast to the world, he was in a senior position, he's on a board and I didn't know him to be that person. And so I went and talked to him, people were upset with me for going to talk to, I went and talked to him and found out that some horrible things had gone on in his life and that the way it was communicated to him, it was because opportunities for his kids and stuff were being taken away so women and minorities could get this and that. He said, so when I talked to him we talked for 11 hours straight and when I talked to him we walked away. He was still off the board and all that stuff, but he now became an advocate because instead of saying you horrible racist person, we had the discussion, but just like you step forward and the people who were following him because he thought he was a horrible racist person, he was now the segue, the bridge to talk to those people and say this is where I was wrong. So because you had the courage to step up and talk to 'em in your organization, I'm sure in HR they already have some kind of guidelines around how we're supposed to communicate to one another. But until we can have actual conversations like the one that you chose to have with this individual and don't let it stop there, continue to work with them. Cause a lot of times it won't happen in the first conversations, but I'm trying to talk really fast so I shut up. But it's very important that we do that and I applaud you for having the courage to do that.

Curtis Harris (Audience member 3) (50:02):

Curtis Harris with Rice financial products companies let's assume that we are all of mine and are very interested in diversity and inclusion and we are for the better part, at least I know I have in my 35 years plus in the industry have recognized early on that this industry is probably one of the last that has given serious thought to diversity. It's gotten a little bit better over the years but still you find in finance particularly, and as an example I serve on a investment committee board and we hear from investment managers all the time. They give us presentations about what their actual achievements are. And in every case there's always a discussion about diversity or at least from their perspective, diversity. And I remember in one case recently they give you a pitch book, they give you the biographies of everybody and the person leading the presentation literally said, we have a very diverse team. And if you looked at all the pictures, there was no person of color. But from their perspective, diversity was the fact that they had a few women working at their firm. Those types of situations require persons or a person to be a change agent. That change agent in that particular case was me and maybe somebody else saying challenging them on their whole issue of diversity. And we could do that from a position of power because they were selling us. My question to you is to be that change agent. Some people aren't comfortable doing that because fear of what's going to happen next to them personally. How do you get people to not only be a change agent or at least what advice do you give people to not be so concerned about the potential downside of what they perceive could be happening to them if they are that change? Cause I think a lot of people think the right way and want to do the right thing, but they don't because of that fear.

Derek McNeil (52:26):

Well Curtis, that's a really good question. And again, I recognize Curtis as being one of the pioneers in public financing in the space that's sort of paved the way for people like myself. Yeah, Curtis, it's a hard thing to do. You got to eat, pay your bills, you got tuition to pay. But I think for me it's just having faith in a lot of ways. Just having faith, knowing you're doing the right thing and maybe in your messaging, as we talked about before, as you convey your message you know, do it sort of the right way, the non-threatening way, whatever that is. But it's never easy to take the hill as you know. So I applaud you. Not an easy thing to do. This is something I personally do take on and others, but I think you just have to have a sense of faith. You have to know what's important to you values and just trust that it'll take care of itself and know what you're doing is the right thing to do.

Janie Mines (53:25):

The part that everybody's talked about here about being deliberate and intentional managing change is not a kind of ethereal mindset. There are many disciplines out, there are many tools and techniques for understanding and looking at how you manage change, adding that preparedness along with it, understanding what are the typical things that need to be done, how does information need to be shared in order to successfully execute change from just a general perspective. And then look back at the organization that you're talking about and look at the types of things that were done and how change worked, how they executed, the change that was specific to that organization and what drivers were important and acceptable. But just like you manage any other major initiatives, this deserves no less of the rigor and the attention to details and being in intentional in terms of how you execute it. So I'm a big, big believer in preparedness. If you're going to go after something, understand specifically what it is you're trying to achieve and then lay out a specific plan tailored to that particular audience in order how to execute it, get feedback from other people, build relationships and allies. But just like we do in the you all, I'm preach to the choir, you all know how to do this. This effort deserves no less attention.

Chip Barnett (55:01):

Okay, we're out of time. I want to thank everybody for listening to us today. Oh, okay.

Rodney Jones (Audience member 4) (55:16):

My name is Rodney Jones, national Capital Resources Boston. And I just wanted to share with the panel and to applaud Bond Buyer for having this session with the first one. That's possible. But the other side of it is, as former colleague of for MR almost 30 years in the industry, I have never seen the Bond Buyer really go a little step further with regards to helping one, the measurement side of keeping the score. We celebrate the best bond deal, we celebrate women in business, which is great, but we're not keeping the score as to what firms are doing their job with regards to hiring. Make it a little easier for my firm from Nigeria who's trying to connect and network. Cause that's what I think I see missing in the firm, in the industry, which is connecting people who are trying to rise. So that's my comment.

Chip Barnett (56:18):

No, I think that's actually quite a good idea. It's something maybe you and I should talk soon. Thank you everybody and thank you sir.