The Leadership and Executive programmes, running on different days, offered sessions tailored for the separate senior and executive level membership delegates. These were storytelling-led for the leadership group and for the executive tier, workshop-led sessions to offer personal development for the enthusiastic delegates. The sessions revolved around social mobility within the financial services industry and the mortgage sector.
With the executive event hosted by contributing editor, Mortgage Solutions, Victoria Hartley, the first speaker, Sophie Hulm, chief executive at Progress Together kicked off the morning event by laying out a clear case for industry evolution.
“In financial services, 89 per cent of senior leaders are from higher socio-economic backgrounds versus 52 per cent from the rest of the economy. In finance, we’re getting the talent in but we’re not retaining them. They’re leaving before many get to the top,” she said.
“Unlocking this pot of people would release recruitment difficulties, nurture diversity and inclusivity and increase productivity at an organisational level,” she added.
Statistics suggested working class people progress 25 per cent slower than their peers with no link to job performance.
“So, they are performing well at their job but they were not getting ahead,” said Hulm, confirming people are being promoted that fit the mould, but not necessarily the best performers.
Hulm said the regulator and City investors continue to raise their expectations and question companies on individual progress on the socio-economic credentials of their employees.
She added that the last Labour government fully intended to but never managed to make social equality a protected characteristic (like gender and ethnicity) in the 2010 Equality Act, so it may be a target for the party when it, in all likelihood, becomes the UK’s next government this year.
“It’s the mental toll of fitting in. It’s not about saying one socioeconomic background is better than another – it’s about diversity of backgrounds, diversity of thought to ensure people from different backgrounds can fit in.”
Polish and exposure, sponsorship and transparency
Hulm said it’s not about changing people, but evolving promotion and job allocation processes to make the system more transparent. It’s about allyship and sponsorship of those with talent, not just those who look like you and not expecting every candidate to be able to present themselves with confidence if the role doesn’t demand that or expecting people to have a 2:1 on their CV if they have evidenced excellence over a longstanding career.
Hulm urged the room to dig deeper and examine processes which don’t serve the greater good of the company.
In the next session, former live BBC producer and impact guru Esther Stanhope took the room on a journey of self-discovery to boost confidence and greater self-knowledge about delegates’ personal drivers and goals.
Stanhope took the room through a whirlwind of career-mapping and demanded honesty with an attainment mark for current career achievements out of 10, before rounding out to life and career goals.
“Without a career goal, it’s really hard to navigate to your success,” she said.
“Put in some time that is just dedicated to moving yourself forward. Fifteen minutes a day is nothing. But invest some time, money if necessary, but time primarily. It might be an email, it might be meeting someone for coffee or it might be a career graph, or goal mapping for 2024 or just speaking to your boss. Schedule it in the diary,” said Stanhope.
Stanhope offered a roadmap to discovering your own unique selling points and presenting yourself and your unique qualities unashamedly, whatever those might be.
Stanhope said: “It’s a really good idea to get help with your career. It could be a coach, colleagues, mentor, a boss, friends. I cracked how to leave the BBC and start a business when I got a business coach. It’s a gamechanger.”
She said if you want to be successful, it’s not the time to be humble. To be successful you have to leave your comfort zone and feel a little afraid.
Another tip included being a lot more visible in life and boosting your professional profile and pick an action to complete today and then every day, which could be good for your career.
Foreign names hold you back
Next up, Anj Hander from Inspiring Women Changemakers kicked off a searing session with the fact a foreign-sounding name makes you 60 per cent less likely then someone with a British name to make it to a second interview in the UK.
Hander walked us through her own work history, which began in business in London and on to a government quango and following a trio of life-changing events, she started her own business in Leeds.
She said one of the most important things a boss ever said to her was: “Anj. Your voice matters. Never think that it doesn’t.”
This concept of being ‘the only’ person with a certain characteristic in a workplace is very isolating, she said. The global women in workplace report was published in 2022, which surveyed over 40,000 people and found that people who hold double ‘the only’ characteristics faced additional barriers that could lead to work burnout.
Hander said it’s important to remove mask after mask, whether it’s the armour of work suits, or uncovering your real identity, whether its class or Indianness, for example.
“You see it with our political classes, with Rishi Sunak, with Priti Patel, Suella Braverman – they belong to a wider community but really it shows a deep level of insecurity because they are not showing a complete identity. But sometimes we don’t do that because we don’t feel safe. Sexuality, disability, these are all examples.”
“Many of us, mask or pass or cover. We make our accent more posh, but all of these things hinder connection with people. How can they see us if they don’t see what we need help with?”
Hander quoted poet and thinker, Maya Angelou who once said: “You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”
She said the words inclusion and belonging are used interchangeably, from a diversity perspective, but they are very different. A change of leadership or even colleague can undermine a feeling of inclusion completely. Building resilience must first of all come from ourselves, she added.
One delegate in the audience asked how you can evidence or measure this feeling of employee psychological safety, as she said employees at her company tell her they don’t feel safe, yet the management say they feel they provide that feeling and safeguard their team and engagement surveys suggest all is well?
Hander said: “How can we? One individual is never going to see or hear the full picture. This is about trust, connection, these are human powerful traits that we need to develop in ourselves and our leadership. Peer pressure, so, have you seen what our competitors are doing?’ is useful – or have you seen this piece of research?’. Data can be useful, in this situation too.”
“It’s a continuous effort and anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t telling you the truth,” she added.
A huge thank you once again to our speakers.
Learning outcomes:
– Demonstrating why socio-economic diversity, not just with access but, at senior levels matters, commercially and morally
– Developing your toolkit for success
– Building resilience within yourself and your diverse teams
DIFF leadership event
At the Leadership event, the following week, DIFF chairman Bharat Sagar hosted the session entitled: Social mobility: levelling the playing field and creating a fairer system.
Kenny Imafidon, author, journalist and co-founder of Clearview Research began the event at Ironmongers Hall with his presentation entitled: That Peckham Boy.
‘This is a very personal story in the face of insurmountable odds, illustrating what we could be missing by not casting our nets wider,” said Sagar in his introduction.
Reading from his own book, Imafidon quoted Malcolm X, saying: “I believe in the brotherhood of all men. But I don’t believe in sharing it with anyone who doesn’t want to practice it with me. Brotherhood is a two-way street.”
He read: “Who do you look up to? Some people are admired because they have achieved something extraordinary against all odds. Others are admired because of their wealth or the position they have risen to. Some may hold a world record or have had their talents nurtured. Others have tirelessly campaigned for social change or given their lives to enjoy the freedoms we have today.”
He said he was impassioned by the three towering figures of the civil rights movement – Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey.
“They left a strong impression of what inspirational leadership looks like, a blueprint I could follow to become the great man my father never was.”
Imafidon’s childhood was effectively fatherless save for a few hundred pounds in the form of a handout twice a year when he saw him as he grew up in Peckham, surrounded by drug dealers for role models and went to a school which was under special measures.
He got 12 GCSEs and with the help of many inspirational teachers he was targeting Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at University when in the summer of 2011, he was arrested and charged for a murder and a catalogue of other crimes. He found himself inside Feltham Prison for six months for a murder he didn’t commit.
He was the youngest person to pass his A-levels in the prison, having just turned 18 – philosophy, politics and history (he dropped economics) – all the time aware that be could be imprisoned until the age of 47 years old.
After a four-week trial, he knew he was going home due to lack of evidence and was acquitted. However, two of his friends got 30 years to life, while he went on to get a scholarship to do a law degree.
The onward drive
“The journey for me has been very much about making sure people understand, you don’t have to be imprisoned by your past. I never pictured that coming my way, but when it did I had to respond with strength and at the same time. I didn’t want to be a victim of my past and took agency over my life.”
“One thing people are very good at is finding someone to blame but themselves. I didn’t want to be remembered for the worst thing that happened to me,” he said.
He said: “People have a view of what talent looks like. Certain schools, certain universities. A particular skin tone. A particular gender. And that’s where you’ve all got it wrong. I know the grit and resilience it has taken to get me where I am today.”
A Clearview joint-research report, commissioned byfair4allfinance, produced in partnership with Ipsos Mori, showed one in five people from ethnic minority backgrounds have experienced discrimination due to race when dealing with financial providers.
Imafidon shared a raft of statistics suggesting ethnic minorities are underbanked, find financial services hard to understand, with a large proportion saying they have never been told the reason for a rejection for a financial product.
“There are so many people that are being overlooked. For me when we think about diversity, this isn’t a ‘nice to have’, this is not about doing someone a favour, this is about doing the right thing,” he said.
The power of self
Mentorship is one way to ‘build a bridge’ for people and Imafidon said he has stood on the shoulders of many giants.
To all financial services providers, he said the top three things providers need to do are employ diverse staff to understand their clientele and give people the chance to provide context for their lives on applications.
He added that on recruitment, firms need to ask much more interesting questions during the interview process to get to character, beyond age and where you worked before – and offer paid internships.
A huge thanks once again to all our speakers at the leadership event
Learning outcomes:
– Understanding why socio-economic diversity, not just with access but, at senior levels matters, commercially and morally
– Highlighting the role of financial services in increasing social mobility
– Demonstrating the value of joining Progress Together
