England (Commonwealth Union)_ According to a recent survey, the asset management sector was the only one of the financial services sectors to see a decline in diversity, equity and inclusion year over year, lagging behind its peers in these areas. In an interview with Investment Week, co-founder of 10,000 Black Interns and CEO of Barrington Hibbert Associates Michael Barrington-Hibbert discussed how this can be changed for the better and how it’s more important to address culture than it is to merely hit diversity goals.
A non-profit organization called 10,000 Black Interns was established in 2020 with the goal of placing black college graduates and students in paid internships in a variety of industries. Abrdn, Goldman Sachs, Redington, PGIM, and Janus Henderson are just a few of the companies that are taking part. With more than 2,500 completed in its first two years, it has set a five-year goal of 10,000 candidate placements. When a company approaches him about joining the program, according to Barrington-Hibbert, the first question he asks them is why they want to participate.
The COVID-19 pandemic gripped the globe, exposing socioeconomic inequalities on an undeniable scale, and the Black Lives Matter movement gained international notoriety in the wake of the US citizen George Floyd’s murder. These painful periods of social reflection coincided with the program’s launch. Barrington-Hibbert said he did believe it was done with genuine good intent when companies signed up for the program at the program’s 2020 launch.
During the initial launch, the founder claimed that the idea for 10,000 Black Interns originated from arranging a breakfast discussion about the reasons why there wasn’t enough diverse talent in the UK financial services industry with industry participants. The creator also discussed what white people, those in managerial roles, and those who are not in control of recruiting should do to support these constructive changes. In terms of what the organization is doing more generally about culture, he added, “we have to ask questions. Again, it is not exclusively directed at race, or poor socioeconomic origins.”
