 All right, so good afternoon, everyone. We'll get started here. So welcome to our panel on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the current state and where we go from here. So for the panel, we have Nick Chitra in Japan here with us and I'm Rita Chaturvedi. I work for Morgan Stanley, been there for about 12 years now, and I work in the technology division in Morgan Stanley. I'm going to allow my panelists to introduce themselves first before we jump into the discussion on diversity, equity, and inclusion. So Nick, we'll start with you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Rita. Pleasure to meet each and every one of you. My name is Nick Pullo. I run Distributed Cloud Research at IBM, vice president of Distributed Cloud. That entails applying AI technologies to the software delivery lifecycle in multiple domains, inclusive of Genita Cloud and Edge Computing. Chitra Hota. I work for three capital management, I'm the CTO, and the head of Rida Technology and Architecture, been there for about 16 months now. Prior to that, I was a JP Morgan as a CTO, and then before that, Morgan Stanley, that's how I know Rita. Hi, I'm Jocelyn Beckles. I'm a lead developer at Scott Logic, where we help, so it's a consultancy in the UK. I'm also a diversity and inclusion ambassador for that and Finna's DEI member. Thank you, Nick, Chitra, and Jivon for being here. So we all keep hearing about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and equity and inclusion are more recent additions to the conversation. Diversity is what we used to speak about more in the past. And we hear a lot of stats around how the companies that are branded as diverse and inclusive have a better chance at being successful in acquiring business or getting success over their competitors in the marketplace. And there are studies from McKinsey and Gartner and all of these companies that place a measure value on what their edge can be. And yet, we see that there is still a lot of conversation that needs to happen in this regard and a lot of progress that is still needed in this area. So my first question to Chitra is, what more and should be done to improve the diversity, especially at the leadership and executive levels, potentially unlocking more business and social value? Great question. What the best thing that we can do is ensure that once you have a seat at the table, you are constantly speaking out for diversity. You are looking at the hiring panels, making sure that diverse candidates in the hiring panels measure these KPIs and statistics along in the organization as well as in your leadership team ensure that they're hiring a diverse panel. And more than that, be a good role model. Speak up, be there to mentor, because that's another thing and advocate for the fact that women candidates or diverse candidates have to apply for a job, even though they don't meet 100% of the capabilities that are advertised because you can have them grow in the job by mentoring. We've done a lot of things in Oak Tree. We have programs called RISE. So once women get promoted into our diverse candidates for our VP level position, even SVP for that matter, we start coaching them. We have sessions for them. We mentor them, we send them over to training so that we are growing a pipeline from within the firm. If you're not filing a pipeline outside of the firm, and that has helped, especially in investment and in technology fields where the candidate pool is very, very low. Yeah, that's really good, Nick. What would you want to say about this particular question where what more can be done? Yeah, so fantastic points raised by Chitra. Getting to the retention end of the equation is really critical as it relates to sponsorship as it relates to filling exact positions that begin to represent what the globe looks like, what the planet looks like. The supply side of that equation is really critical too in terms of recruitment. And when you look at stats provided by the Computing Research Association, for example, they published something known as the Taube Report on an annual basis. The Taube Report shows on the order of 1% to low single digit percent for black and Latino respectively, at the bachelor's level, at the PhD level, excuse me, about 20% female, and as you go in earlier degree progression, master's degrees, bachelor's degrees, the numbers rise, but never approaching for the US, for example, national demographic numbers. So clearly a lot has to be done on the retention side, the recruitment side of the equation, excuse me, both sides candidly, to increase that pipeline so that you have more to sponsor as it relates to executive roles, mid-level management roles, and ultimately, entry-level roles. Yeah, great points. Thank you both. Jivon, would you like to add anything? Yeah, I think that's intentionality around getting the candidates into the positions. In what would otherwise be, oh, you know, they didn't meet the criteria, or you know, they're just not out there, so don't go for it. That's the main key. That's the important thing to hold on to, and good examples, but yeah. I like that. The intentionality is really, really important for the firms to not just do lip service, but really do something tangible in this regard in creating programs that will give you measurable benefits and measurable results is really, really important. Nick, my next question is to you. In your experience, do you have any examples where you or others that you may have interacted with used your position to improve diversity in your companies? Yeah, so we undertook a major endeavor at IBM several years ago, pre the unfortunate events of 2020, where we really spread our wings beyond the usual sources. The usual sources being plus line managers go to their alma matas where they have relationships and they recruit individuals to ultimately bring into their organizations as they have hiring ships, hiring tickets. We created a really broad base that for attending diversity specialized conferences in addition to the ones that we typically would go to in addition to career fairs, tap year, society of women engineers, those are a few examples, and they're many more out there. And today when you attend one of those conferences, everybody's there. Everybody in the financial sector and other sectors, technology, service providers, et cetera. So they're all competing for the same talent and what did we talk about before? That talent pool is a lot smaller. It doesn't meet national demographic standards. So the recruitment methods ultimately have to go even beyond the colleges level all the way to the high school level. So one of the things we did fairly recently was to establish, you know, we were having a lunchtime discussion on quantum and quantum is certainly on the rise. There are other technologies of course that are mainstream today. We established a quantum research consortium with historically black colleges and universities, Morehouse College, Maya Mamata, and many others. So they are actually hitting the nail on the head as it relates to how you specifically grow that pipeline. I've been a critical part of many of these endeavors myself and we're seeing some fruit. Our numbers don't look like national demographics yet, but you're in it for the long game. You're in it for the long haul. It's not something that you saw have been a one hiring cycle or two hiring cycles. Absolutely. We're in this for a long haul for sure. Chitra, anything to add there? Sure. So we've also been through several of these initiatives. We have all finance. We go to historically black colleges and we've partnered with other asset management firms on this one, including Apollo and Aries. We also have a Wharton Women in Investing. How it is a big sponsor of that is from Wharton. So we hold those conferences, we sponsor them. So we want to encourage women in the investment management space. There are very few just like technology. In the technology space, I remember when I was in college and entered my first job, I was the only woman engineer training in a batch of like 52. Very awkward, but I mean, that's the reality. So I made a conscious effort that I have to start mentoring the ladies right from like middle school into high school and have them select technology jobs. Because if you don't select technology careers or jobs, you will never be in that pipeline. I know it's difficult, women drop off, but the encouragement and having that role model in front of you, which I never had when I started, is very key because if you see somebody that looks like you, you know what a good looks like, a great looks like, and you want to be that. So that's something that I always try to promote. Yeah, and I have benefited from that and I'm sure a lot of other people benefit from seeing role models, not just women, but also all diversity categories. So it's really important to be able to see leaders who look like you, for you to aspire to become like them one day. Jibbon, anything you would like to add here? I'd really like to reiterate what Chitra has said in terms of that mentality of, you would have seen somebody or you might be the person, but then passing it forward, being that person to say, okay, here is somebody that I can identify and try to bring up or help to promote. And we don't often do that in our careers. We kind of look for ourselves and I think it's that broader looking out and very much like the open source mentality. I think somebody mentioned in a talk earlier that responsibility of taking the opportunity that somebody has given you, but also providing opportunity for others as well. Yeah, absolutely. Moving on to the next question, there are again reports from several accredited organizations. There is one particular report which Deloitte published in 2022, where they said that positive workplace culture is one of the top values that attract millennials to organizations. There is a survey that Forbes did which said that psychological safety has become more and more important in organizations and attracts talent to organizations that provide psychological safety to their employees. With more employees expecting these organizational behaviors, I'll start with Nick, you. Have you seen any changes in workplace to improve employee's feeling of belonging or encouraging psychological safety at work? Yeah, no fantastic question. So engagement is a critical part of retention clearly and significant part of engagement is that sense that I'm in a safe environment where if project-wise I'm unhappy, if there's challenges in the relationship between teammates, between managers, et cetera, you need avenues, you need vehicles to be able to reach out to and communicate such concerns. A measurement of that engagement process on some type of frequency, be it annual, be it biennial, is quite typical of many organizations today and ensuring that there's no retaliatory methods employed by management and other leaders as it relates to that feedback. We have personally measured on that at IBM and I know many other organizations are engaged in such measurements so that you have that feeling of comfort and safety. I'll give you a personal example. I recently conducted my own engagement and there was a lot of positive feedback and there was critical feedback as well as it relates to there was one individual who was just uncomfortable with lunchtime conversations. This was approaching the election cycle and there were lunchtime conversations at the table regarding who is on one side who is the other or in the middle, what have you. And that particular individual was uncomfortable with such discussions and shared that as part of the engagement process. And that was critical. I took the opportunity as part of that feedback to say, you know, this is a safe space. We have to be able to share that thought and ultimately we're a company that doesn't lean left right or in the middle. We work with any organization. We work with any political organization. And so this is a critical part of who we are as an organization. So I think we're trending in that right direction. More of that needs to happen. I hear stories from other parts of the industry that suggest that we still have more to do in order to get to that, you know, asymptotic perfection. Absolutely. Anything to add, Jivon? Yeah, I think, so again, brilliant question. It's very easy to think, you know, the organization needs to be the person leading this and quite rightly so. I think it's important that the organization put their steps out and their efforts out and think, yes, we want to do this and we're going in this direction. However, this is new for everybody. And I think that, you know, there may be fear that, oh, you know, I need to get it right first time. Or I need to be able to engage everybody and make sure that, well, you know, we're not getting involved in that because that's a topic all this time, you know, similar to the next point. So that acceptance, that understanding that maturity of both the management in trying to do stuff, let's try to do something, but also that maturity of the staff, employees, citizens, you know, we could extend that idea just accept that mistakes will be made. And if a mistake is made, we learn from it and grow from it. It's not going to be one-off. So I think it's important on both sides when engaging in that kind of activity that we go to it from, you know, those two sides of it. Just a very positive outlook on this. Chitra, any thoughts on? Yeah, so every leader has that responsibility to ensure that they give safe space, not to just that team, but to the broader teams in general, right? So retaliation is something that we also are very aware of and we make sure the feedback is taken very candidly and act it apart. Second thing I would want to mention is the employee networks, right? They're very good safe spaces to talk because you're outside your domain of work and mingling with other people in the organization. So we have LGBTQ networks. We have networks for native cultural groups. We also have women's leadership network where we have a safe haven where we talk about issues at a leadership level, like what issues do you face? For example, one of the things that always comes up is microaggressions when it comes to women, right? So at the table. So what are we doing as a leader that I see microaggression happening at the table? I always speak up and say, hey, that was a great idea. Why don't you help explain it? If somebody else is taking over the idea and speaking about it, right? So things like that, if you make that conscious effort as a leader and show that you care, automatically it's contagious. So the inclusive behavior and the biases can't dissolve and the inclusive behavior is actually promoted. So that's something that each one of us actually owes to the broader community. Yeah, and it starts a positive cycle of keep giving forward. If you have received that ally shape and advocacy from somebody, then you just pay it forward from there. My next question is actually related to, you said microaggression, sub-conscious biases. We are very aware of those now. Then we used to be even five years back. There is a lot of conversation about sub-conscious biases in workplace. It can be small things like saying, oh, you come from X, Y, and Z country and you have such an impeccable dressing sense. You may be thinking in your mind that you're giving a compliment to somebody but they can take it as bias and so on. So I'll start with you, Jevon, on this question. What are your thoughts on sub-conscious bias in workplace and how would you go about creating a safe environment to address these biases? Yeah, well, I think the first thing to start off with is that everybody has biases, whether we admit it or not, right? Some people have better control of it than others but I think that is the starting point from which we should go. Things like policies for guiding behavior, positive behavior and identifying what is negative behavior is important and we should really try to incorporate that into corporate policies and ways of working and all those kinds of things. But fundamentally, it's a people thing. When I go back to that previous point, we are all human, mistakes can be made. So somebody might have a bias and might need to be, as just said, be pointed out that this is not acceptable and in identifying that in the time, that maturity to take that on, you know, okay, I've done something wrong, it's been pointed out and not retaliate but really try to take that on board and of course there are ways to do that. Conflict is never easy to deal with but approaching it in this way I think is important. Having that common understanding that we're here to improve each other. Absolutely. So basically creating an environment of trust where people feel comfortable pointing out when bias happens but also the people who may have done the bias or unconsciously of course, that for them to accept it and be prepared to remediate the behavior going forward, right? Nick, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, Javon is spot on. Guidelines around business conduct as it relates to implicit bias is a critical part of not just human resources, meeting that out and communicating that to teams across organizations but teams adopting that from a cultural standpoint, making it very much intrinsic to who you are as an organization and as a company. I think that just allows for a level of consistency such that it doesn't even begin to appear as you get to a level of maturity in the growth of an organization's culture but that does take time if an organization is new to this and these policies are now being implemented for the first time. But I totally agree this has to be a foundational part of who you are from a business conduct standpoint with regular training that occurs at some frequency be that once a year, twice a year what have you for that organization and importantly and critically manifested by leadership. Leadership has to lead the way in ultimately making that a cultural sticking point for that organization. Yeah, very, very valid points. Thank you. Chitra, I'm going to just tweak it slightly from your standpoint. When we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion a big part of equity is pay parity. What are your thoughts on that? Great question. So if you've been following the U.S. answers women make I believe 83 cents for every dollar that a man makes and some of the things that have happened in the recent past is now the salaries are being published. New York just started. It's going to happen in California as well and a couple of other states. That's a very good way of bringing parity to pay. The other thing is if you are aware of a pay equity not happening as you see a discrepancy between a male or a female candidate or another diverse candidate versus a general candidate then speak up and bring about that change. That's the other thing that we need to do and also remove that unconscious bias in the hiring process, right? Because the role should be agnostic of gender, right? It should be agnostic of color, race, creed any of that. It should be just about the role, right? So that's another thing that we can do. So good, good, all the companies are bringing in pay equities and that's a really good place to be now and it's helping a lot of them. Do you think there is still enough transparency about what the just if justifiable salary is for a position because the ranges that I've seen are all over the place like 100,000 range from start to end for a particular position. It's a start but you know I would say you owe it to yourself as a woman to ask for what is rightfully yours, right? If you don't do that, the other thing that we do is we don't change jobs that often I would encourage like three to four years learn a new trade or learn a new stack and then change jobs because that's the best way to get promoted. I have used that in the past. That's the way to get a pay high and of course you have to work hard, you all do, to pick up that but you can always pick it up. Great. I was just reading up something I wanted to share. The great breakup I don't know if everyone has heard about it where women are leaving in throngs and one of the biggest reasons is lack of pay parity and organizations according to Garter report organizations that are going to work on pay parity will have at least 30 to 40% chance of keeping those women at the organization then the organizations that are not really paying much attention to this. Again, something to take away. We only have three more minutes left so I would like to open up to our audience at this point and see if there are any questions for the panelists here. Yes, please. We're talking about psychological safety and feedback and engagement so how do you confront the balance with great performance and long hours kind of roles when I hear you and I want you to feel safe talking to me about what's going on with you like how do you find that an appropriate balance? Looking good. Any rule in technology any rule that is a professional rule spanning a range of industries requires you to deliver value. It starts with that. No one is hiring you because of a demographic they are hiring you because of the ability the potential ability for you to deliver value. That's number one. Now, once you are associated with returning value on that investment absolutely you have a safe space right as it relates to a range of or you should have a safe space leadership is there to help enforce that but they work together right we actually literally I swear you had a direct link into a staff meeting we had fairly recently but this is a discussion we just had because we are working more right there was significant competition coming out and continues to happen that way with the pandemic and so what folks want to know okay yes I have to do this I have to run fast but I also have these other things that are appearing right how do you help me with productivity how do you help me with a whole range of other issues so that yes I can complain so to speak to leadership to help make things more efficient but at the end of the day delivering value is critical. Yes. Talked a lot about bias and a safe space and creating that and a lot of that falls on leadership which I really appreciate staying in that position a lot of leaders in the room what do you do in the hiring process what trades to you before for candidates to make sure that when they come in they are going to fit the culture that you want and really drive home the point of inclusion which I think is a newer emphasis that we have in your position I can take that so there are a couple of things you can do so you don't always have to hire for fit for the culture sometimes you need to change the culture a bit so you have to look for I look for growth can that person grow in this organization what kind of leadership skills is the person bringing to the table right and then a lot of a lot of the gaps can actually be filled by mentorship if you don't find the perfect candidate but you have to ensure that the pipeline that you're hiring for is very consistent and it's helping you grow your organization to make it much more inclusive because I've always said that I have if I have representation across my table I get a better product I'm delivering faster and I'm also ensuring that I have efficiency in my entire pipeline right because those ideas are helping me become better not just become better as an organization but become better as a leader because there's reverse mentoring happening when you learn from the candidates that you hire so all of it all of it works I mean can I just add to that in that we forget that people's interactions go beyond the company or a company and I think the more that a company can fill the gaps that a person lives as many gaps I mean you can definitely you can't fill all the gaps but the more gaps that you can fill in the career development the better the company will do for attraction maintain and develop and ultimately retain it I love that the companies are basically they have the ability to make an impact on the society and that's where this is even more important that we start it within our organizations and influence the rest of the society along with our own organizations so I know we are seeing a stop sign in the back maybe one more I think we had one more question then okay yes please so I know in a lot of the DEI initiatives we talk more closely from the perspective of the supply so usually the diverse population but I'm curious about any metrics or measures of success that are not strictly from the perspective of like counting the population of diverse species so like how do we include non-diverse people in helping measure success of like facilitating that pipeline sustaining diversity organization you have to start early first of all start at the middle school high school level then the other thing that's encouraged people to apply even though they do not meet 100% of the job criteria that's the other thing where we see especially for women if they don't fit the bill 100% they don't apply but I don't see that for men so that's another thing that I would say like even if you don't fit the bill 100% to apply for that job because you can always grow into that role yeah and hiring managers have to conversely they have to become a bit more flexible and really identifying what are the core requirements of the role and as long as the person is meeting those core requirements everything else can be flexible but you know sorry I was just going to say sorry I kind of want to turn this on a little bit in the sense that we really shouldn't be yes metrics and that kind of thing is important but I think we kind of need to get to the stage of almost continuous reflection where because you know you could identify groups and say oh you know we are now including this group and that group and that group but somewhere along that process if somebody gets left out inadvertently right that's still a problem and that's you know part of the reason why we have these societies that we have today and I think that you know in inculcated a culture of continuous reflection who am I excluding who is not getting the best who is you know that I think is the stage that we need to get to rather than just looking at numbers or anything like that alright so with that we will wrap up our discussion thank you again Nick Chitra