Promoting diversity as a key strategic priority
Diversity unites and is crucial for creative and successful collaboration.
Nigel Cresswell, CFA
CEO, Managing Partner
For the uninitiated, there are so many great books and research articles on diversity, and if you are looking for a good starting point to read into this, try “Rebel Ideas” by Matthew Syed. (Many thanks to Jess Melville for giving me this recommendation.)
And yet, this is not a new idea. As noted in this book, in the 19th century the English philosopher John Stuart Mill already said: “It is hardly possible to overrate the value… of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar… Such communication has always been, and is peculiarly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress.”
The asset management industry has a long way to go in terms of creating diverse workforces, and in Germany this is even more pronounced. For example, the latest Citywire Alpha Female Report – which covers one aspect of diversity in terms of the proportion of women – shows that Germany lags behind the global average with only 6% women in fund management.* That is an abysmally low number and collectively as an industry we need to take decisive action to change this.
As CEO of Quoniam, I place great strategic importance on a culture with a clear purpose, which promotes diversity and creates sufficient flexibility for different life models of our employees. This benefits not only our people, but also our clients and further stakeholders as we harvest the benefits of diversity. Currently 26% of our investment professionals are women, and we have 17 nationalities representing our Company. But we do not look at this as “success” relative to those industry statistics, instead we take this as showing that we also have room for improvement.
“It is our clear goal to further promote diversity and anchor it in our corporate culture.”
Nigel Cresswell, CFA
CEO, Managing Partner
But this will not happen on its own, simply by making this statement. To this end, I have made my first hire at Quoniam, which is a dedicated role that drives these topics – I’m thrilled to announce Camilla Udd as our new Head of Culture, Diversity and Change.
Camilla is a proven expert in this domain, and has developed the topics of culture, change and diversity in several internationally operating companies and anchored them in these organisations. In her new role, she will work closely with myself as CEO and the broader management team to provide strategic input and to coordinate and drive our joint efforts through to implementation across our teams.
I look forward to working with Camilla and our entire team to nurture our corporate culture, to successfully accompany change and to promote and celebrate diversity and inclusion!