Mastering Risk Management

DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AND CULTURE

Even though the firm’s values are based on decision-making or risk-taking, they won’t be optimal if those who make the decisions are effectively clones. Make sure you use cognitive diversity, not groupthink, when you make decisions. That starts with recruitment. We need to think about socio-economic and ethnic diversity, not ‘hiring people like us’. You don’t achieve diversity by ‘employing the sisters of your existing board’.10

By the same token we must make sure that there are no structural biases to allow people to move into senior roles. A UK Banking Standards Board survey11 of 70,000 people in financial services said that men get better opportunities:

Investment banking 24%

Commercial banking 14%

Retail ...