The Hire thru Retire Podcast
Advancing Gender Equality in Financial Services with Christine Hurtsellers
In this episode, Bill is joined by Voya’s very own Christine Hurtsellers, CEO of Voya Investment Management to discuss gender parity — both within the context of corporate America and traditionally male dominated industries like financial services. Beyond the state of the industry, as the now leader of Voya’s asset management business, in today’s episode Christine shares more about her experience coming up in the finance industry and further shares what inclusion looked like in the early days of her career. Tune in to hear more about her experiences and how gender equality and diversity simply makes good business sense.
Bill Harmon is a registered representative of Voya Financial Partners, LLC (member SIPC).
CN2743796_0225
In this episode, Bill is joined by Voya’s very own Christine Hurtsellers, CEO of Voya Investment Management to discuss gender parity — both within the context of corporate America and traditionally male dominated industries like financial services. Beyond the state of the industry, as the now leader of Voya’s asset management business, in today’s episode Christine shares more about her experience coming up in the finance industry and further shares what inclusion looked like in the early days of her career. Tune in to hear more about her experiences and how gender equality and diversity simply makes good business sense.
Bill Harmon is a registered representative of Voya Financial Partners, LLC (member SIPC).
CN2743796_0225
You are listening to The Hire Through Retire podcast with Voya's Bill Harmon tackling all things from 401ks to HSAs and everything in between. We are talking to the best and brightest in the industry to bring you the latest in benefits, savings, and investment trends in the workplace. Come along with us on our journey to help all Americans become well-planned, well-invested, and well protected.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hire Through Retire podcast. I'm your host, bill Harmon, and thank you so much for joining me here today. We have an incredible guest here with us today, and that's our very own Christine Hurtz Sellers, Christine's a c e o of Voy Investment Management. And to say that Christine has had a very busy year running Voya asset management business would be quite the understatement. So we are really thrilled to be able to spend some time with Christine today. Christine, welcome to the
Speaker 3:Pod. Ah, thank you so much, Phil. I'm really excited to be here with you today.
Speaker 2:Let's get right into it because in today's episode we're gonna talk about gender parody, both within the context of corporate America and the traditionally male dominated industries such as financial services. So Christine, before we dig into the current state of the industry, can you talk about your experience coming into the industry and what did inclusion look like back in the early days of your career?
Speaker 3:Oh boy, bill, uh,<laugh>, I would say when I started my career, when, when I think about it, you know, that really was a time where, uh, it wasn't that there weren't women coming into entry level programs and we had reasonable representation, you know, at the lower ranks of the firm. But really, uh, as career progression went on, we had almost no representation. And I think when you, when you think about what it was like, I mean, when I started my career and had my first child, I didn't have paid maternity leave. I had two weeks of what they called short-term disability, and then I had to come right back to the office and, you know, it was difficult. And it was also kind of an era where people didn't have a lot of sympathy around any sort of flexibility in terms of, oh my gosh, you know, if I'm not at my daycare picking up my kid by six o'clock, you know, I'm going to get penalized$10 per minute, uh, every minute after six o'clock. That's what life was like in the early days. So I think generally we've come a long way in terms of working through work-life balance and recognizing, uh, you know, that we need to be more thoughtful with benefits, with flexibility. So I'm really proud, generally of the world and the industry that we've come that far. But again, I, I certainly would say, uh, we have a ways to go yet as an industry, particularly in asset management, which is lagging broader financial services.
Speaker 2:Things are better today than they are when both you and I started our careers out. However, it's still, as you're referencing, it's not exactly a great place either. And just to put some perspective of that, earlier this year, fortune announced that for the first time in its 65 year history, that 10% of Fortune 500 companies were being led by female CEOs. And, you know, while this milestone like, you know, many for progress was celebrated, it's also quite honestly pretty sad that we're excited about women having just 10% representation of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies. You know, as our executive chairman, rod Martin has said on many occasions when it comes to things like gender parity in the workplace, it's not just the right thing to do. It makes business sense. So Christine, can you talk about that correlation with that gender parity with better financial outcomes?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, bill. And so I'm gonna reference a couple of studies and then really get into, uh, the why this is the case. And so there've been many studies over the years that show that a diverse team and, you know, a diverse, in many ways results in better financial outcomes and, you know, happier customers and employees. And in fact, a recent study from McKinsey, uh, who we, uh, respect, you know, work with quite a bit as an organization analyzed more than a thousand companies worldwide and proved that organizations with greater diversity among their executive teams tend to have higher profits and longer term value as well. And then conversely, so that's teams that are doing well with this are leading the pack. When you think about the other side, companies with low rates of both gender and racial diversity are almost 30% more likely to underperform and make less money. In other words, underperforming in terms of diversity is harmful for a company's bottom line. So these studies really should get the attention of shareholders, of board of directors and something that as an industry we need to focus on. So that's the what and the why from my perspective. Why does diversity results in better financial success for companies? It's diversity of thought, it's diversity of perspectives, you know, better decision making, uh, more customer centricity to have the eyes of what the world looks like and to be bring that into your company and really inform your strategy and your views. So for many, many reasons, diversity is something where we're making progress, but it's absolutely something that we as an industry and as Voya need to continue to focus on.
Speaker 2:Boy, that's the great point, the diversity of thought. And even to where, you know, we've always said at Voya we're very client-centric. So the executive leadership team, the management teams should represent your customer base as well, you know, so that you can meet them where they are and where they're going. But you know, as much as you'd said that, and I love, I boys love this phrase that doing good is good business. The march towards creating a diverse workforce in terms of gender's actually been slow. So as much as we have those facts that state that, boy, you really need to think about this, it, it has been slow. In fact, the World Economic Forum predicts that it'll now take 151 years to reach gender equality. And as the pandemic set the world back by a generation, it delayed the parody statement by about 36 more years. Although the rate of progress has been good in North America at this rate, it'll still take about 61 and a half years in the region for women to reach parody. So Christine, what's the state of gender parody in the asset management industry and how does gender, uh, correlate with performance there?
Speaker 3:Well, bill, you know, the asset management industry, we has made good progress, however, it is below, you know, broader financial services in the insurance world as well. So definitely the industry recognizes that's engaging more and more. Uh, you know, when I go to c e o and senior exec conferences, this is a discussion point in many breakout sessions. What can the industry do to be better? Now the attention is there, but also going back to kind of our earlier discussion, it makes good business sense. So just as we saw within broader corporate results, diversity actually accelerates success. It's the same specifically in investment management. Morningstar, which is a very, you know, um, notable tracker of fund performance and evaluates such did a study several years ago actually that showed that, uh, very few mutual funds were actually led by senior portfolio managers. And globally it's just one in five funds that has a female manager and it has been improving. But what Morningstar pointed out is that women actually, uh, tend to outperform their male counterparts. So when you look at the funds managed by women, uh, they actually perform very well. And in addition to that, Morningstar also found that having one or more women on the funds management team improved the odds that a new fund launch would be successful and attract assets. And these findings by Morningstar aren't an outlier. They're backed up by other areas in the industry. Other consultants such as Willis Towers Watson, just another instance where, you know, having a diverse leadership team making decisions and diversity thought is going to result in better financial performance.
Speaker 2:That study was done a while ago. And then you combine that with what we said earlier, that companies that have diverse leadership perform better. So you take those two and say, well, gosh, why isn't this moving long faster? And maybe there's another way to look at it's, are we seeing any increased awareness about the issue as it maybe relates to clients paying attention to e s G factors that would include gender parity when they're evaluating the firms that they wanna do business with?
Speaker 3:Yes, bill, more and more we are seeing that. And I think as difficult as Covid was in so many ways for the world, you know, it really brought front and center some of these diversity issues that we as a society need to face and where we need to get better. So women, people of color representation. So really I think it was a huge final kind of area of accountability. And now more and more clients are really asking us in RFPs, we wanna hear about what you're doing. We wanna see your diversity statistics, you know, particularly, you know, gender parody has, has been one of them. And so clients are asking us as an industry and as a company to do the right thing. And I actually am very excited about it because I will tell you Bill, years ago, you know, I used to be, uh, you know, a name portfolio manager oversaw our fixed income business here at Voya. And I remember, I would say this was about seven, eight years ago, I was sitting down with a major global consultant at the time and said, you know, why aren't you asking us about our diversity? Like, isn't this something on your radar screen? And they were like, no,<laugh>. So, so I'm thankful again, because better diversity makes for better results and better team dynamics. So I'm really thankful that, uh, clients are paying attention and the industry is moving in the right way.
Speaker 2:We've covered the what, and we have data behind the what we've covered the why, and we have data behind the why. But I, I would imagine our listeners are very curious if they've, if that route, they really digested those two components. What's the how and how do we attack this problem? How can we help our listeners think about well within their, their own companies, what would be a good place to start?
Speaker 3:Oh boy, bill<laugh>, there are so many important things to be thinking through and, and what we can do. And so I would say the first step is to remember that any change, no matter how slow is still progress. And so think positively bring energy to this and then change will happen. But what we really need to do is have people think through, roll up their sleeves and work through our organization and surely make it better. And there are a couple of things I'm really proud of about the work that we're doing at foia, but one of the things that I wanna say as a female leader for all of us, it's so important isn't the idea of having diverse people. It's are we an inclusive culture? Because you can hire, you know, diverse candidates right out of college or various programs, right? And if they don't see people that they can relate to around them and feel included, then they're not gonna stay. And so I think we've done an excellent job of is harnessing the ideas of our, our people through some of our working councils that we have, you know, across various diversity lenses to really listen. And so as a member of the executive committee, we really value the ideas that have come from our various employee groups such as our people of color, our Latinx group, have really started engaging and we're continuing to run through, you know, various ideation sessions and programs, all of our various, what we call employee resource groups or ERGs, you know, through, through this process. We wanna hear the ideas and why in talking about that is so important to get the ideas of our people, everyone at Voya owned the solutions and own making this a better, more inclusive workplace. So I think that is table stakes, making sure that we're mentoring, um, and providing people tools and access in order to get what they need to be successful is another very important initiative that we've been working on. And then finally, holding people accountable, holding people accountable for the right things. And so I have a diversity plan. My leadership has a customized diversity plan. We look at our dashboard or all the statistics, uh, you know, across asset management as well as each leader within Voya does this to make sure that we're improving and that when diverse candidates leave that we're capturing the reasons why. And that we have a, you know, a very quick sort of pipeline of ideas and things to know kind of that feedback loop of if they are leaving, what are we hearing and what can we do to ensure that they're experience here at Voya is the best it can possibly be.
Speaker 2:And I love how you said it's one thing to be, to have, you know, diversity, but the inclusion piece so that they'll stay and then you can really just grow it together. So maybe let's take that a little further. How do you infuse this mentality into our corporate cultures? What's that look like at different levels? Let's say we could start at looking at C-suite or middle managers, or even individual contributors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, well Bill, I think one of the things we're continuing to do that I'm very excited about is showing that we're a company that is different. And you know, I'm incredibly proud to be in a company that we're led by a woman ceo and we have, you know, very diverse board of directors, uh, 25% people of color, uh, 50% gender diversity. So I feel that that Voya has done a really good job at leading in the front. And now we need to continue to promote and infuse a diversity across all levels and everyone in our company. So the reason I say this is that we need to have access to role models and leaders. People in the past have heard me talk about, you know, what is the gap between what we do as leaders or how we run our lives or our company and what we say. And so ensuring you know that our employees know this is authentic. It's a journey. We need everybody to lean in, uh, and help. And again, you know, we're holding ourselves accountable as the leadership team to ensure that we're creating the best workplace possible. And one thing I also wanna just mention, uh, when it comes to inclusion that I'm also very proud for Voya doing is really leaning into hybrid workplaces and, and being more flexible. Cause in particularly when you go back and focus on gender diversity, a lot of our employees, particularly when covid happened, when you referenced this bill, you know, all of a sudden you're dealing with kids and you're dealing with chaos. And, and the industry took a step back with people leaving the workforce, uh, given the challenges of navigating, you know, children work and home. And I'm particularly proud that we're seeing and we're hearing our employee talent, we're being flexible as an employer. And one other thing, you know, that, that I would say about inclusivity is, you know, we've seen many leaders in asset management companies, which, you know, and I can say their names because it's in the newspaper, Barry Public, right? Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, even BlackRock, you must come back into work. And again, I think Voya is really, uh, differentiating as a leader around all of these things. And so I'm incredibly proud, uh, of what we're doing, but again, knows for everyone that we continue to press ahead. We're not satisfied with our status quo around our, our gender diversity or our broader diversity. And so what we will continue to stay focused cause uh, what you feed is what grows.
Speaker 2:That is great Christine, and, and thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful conversation. It's one thing to learn about gender parity. It's quite another to learn and, and hear from someone with your specific experience and perspective who's navigated everything that you have had to do and had such great success in doing it. If I could close out with one final question, I'd ask, what's a bright future look like to you, you know, a generation from now? What would you hope to see?
Speaker 3:What I'd hope to see is a world where we're not talking about any of this anymore because it's happened. And so that across both gender, uh, you know, ethnic diversity that we reflect, uh, what our, our country looks like in terms of that, our clients, and that this isn't even a conversation that we need to have.
Speaker 2:That is fantastic. I really, really, uh, look forward to a future that, uh, that our kids would be in and it, it would look exactly like that. Christine, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for your time and, and fantastic insight. I'd also like to thank our listeners for joining us today. Stay well.
Speaker 1:This information is provided by Voya for your education only. Neither Voya North Representatives offer tax or legal advice, any opinions expressed within, do not, not necessarily reflect those of the Voya family of companies or its representatives, and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Please consult your tax or legal advisor before making a tax related investment or insurance decision.