I wanted to share an important new initiative by FIA’s Board of Directors. As we have discussed in past conferences, there is a notable lack of diversity in the futures, options and listed derivatives industry.
We must and can do better.
That’s why I’m proud that FIA’s Board of Directors has formed a diversity committee, chaired by Alicia Crighton of Goldman Sachs, with the mission of “fostering diversity and inclusion and striving to encourage, support and celebrate the diverse voices in the industry at large.” We invite all to participate in this conversation.
We will be addressing this topic throughout our panels and we will seek your feedback through notifications on our conference app, FIA Connect.
I personally welcome you to pull me aside and give me your thoughts on the most meaningful way to advance this topic.
Although we plan to address all aspects of diversity, as we celebrate Women’s History Month, an initial focus will be gender.
According to a recent Mercer study on diversity in financial services, women occupy just 15 percent of executive jobs, and only 26 percent at the senior manager level.
We aim to host more networking and mentoring opportunities focused on promoting women and diversity in our industry. We will continue to increase speaker diversity on our conference programs as well as raise the topic frequently and forcefully.
In fact, diversity will be the main topic addressed by tomorrow’s keynote luncheon speaker, Reshma Saujani, who is the founder of Girls Who Code and the bestselling author of “Brave Not Perfect.”
I want to thank DTCC for sponsoring Reshma and helping us to highlight this important topic.
