Annick Donat, the CEO of Clime Investment Management has a big vision for her company on gender and cultural diversity, and why it’s all good for business.
We have many women in our company, and they’re all different.
They range in age, cultural background, experience, and industry experience. To affect meaningful change in anything, you must be open to other peoples’ views and experiences.
I think it’s a lot easier to attract talented women when there are role models. As the expression goes “you can’t be what you can’t see”. It’s much easier to “see yourself” in our company when you walk in for an interview.
Whilst I haven’t tested the hypothesis, my intuition tells me the reason we are attracting women and people with diverse cultural backgrounds is because our leaders are relatable, our interview process involves many people across the business giving prospective employees an early sense of what it would be like to work here, and it has appeal.
It’s the same with attracting female business owners as clients. We have strong entrepreneurial female leaders. If you’re a female business owner looking for a community who will help you grow and learn in a safe and supportive environment, we’re the company to partner with.
Like attracts like in business.
If one person can do this, others can, and this is how we create possibilities for ourselves and others.
Creating an environment where all are welcome despite colour, creed or gender is not only the right thing to do, but also a smart business decision.
McKinsey’s 2019 DEI study showed that top quartile companies with a greater representation of diversity outperformed by 36 percent in profitability compared to those in the bottom quartile.
The results are similar for gender diversity and performance accelerates when there’s more than 30% women in executive positions.
Despite the numbers stacking up, here we are in 2022 having the same discussions about getting women, and diversity of representation into executive positions.
Which leads me to believe there’s still a wide gap between knowing and understanding or acceptance.
It’s one thing to knowing the importance of good nutrition, it can be much harder to take the necessary action to make ‘eat better’ a way of life.
We have a society who seem to be on a perpetual ‘diet’.
Looking at this positively – it’s another competitive advantage for leaders who are prepared to sit outside of the status quo and build a company whose foundation is built on the principles of DEI.
I’m very proud of the gender diversity in our company. Our Board is 40% female, our leadership team is 60% female and 41% of our employees are female. No matter the gender or cultural background, we’re all proud of this.
Financy is a fearless believer in equality and using data insights to accelerate organisational progress in diversity, equity & inclusion.
