The diversity project Speech given by Andrew G Haldane, Chief Economist, Bank of England  Opening remarks given at the Investment Association Launch of the Diversity Project Tuesday 8 November 2016  1  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  1  Let me start by congratulating Helena for launching the Diversity Project. It is a great initiative. The UK’s financial services industry is a world-leader in a great many respects – and long may that remain the case. Yet when it comes to issues of diversity it is often a laggard. For example, recent work by PWC has shown that the gender balance in Financial Services diminishes sharply with seniority. Despite women making up 60% of all employees, only 25% make it to middle-management and only 19% to more senior roles. 2  This is deeply disappointing. But it also presents the industry with a real opportunity to make some great strides forward. I hope the Diversity Project under Helena’s leadership, and the announcement of Jayne-Anne as the Government’s new Women in Finance Champion can help seize that opportunity and propel financial services into a leadership role on diversity too. When I asked a colleague what I should talk about today, she said I needed to have a personal story. That was an immediate challenge. As a white, middle aged, middle class, man working for an Establishment institution, I am not exactly part of a disadvantaged minority. Or am I? Diversity, like beauty, is much more than skin deep.
What is the next frontier for diversity and how is it to be reached? From a potentially long list, let me make four points on possible next steps. First, we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to harvesting the fruits of existing diversity initiatives, focussed on the protected characteristics of gender, ethnicity and disability. On gender, where progress has perhaps been fastest and furthest, there are still gaps to fill all the way up the executive chain, especially in financial services, with a persistent pay gap of 20-30% and low levels of representation at executive level. On ethnicity, as John Parker’s report last week made clear, we are scarcely out of the  7  For further details please see Haldane (2014) ‘Central bank psychology’. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  4  starting blocks. And on disability, physical and mental, much the same could be said. Whatever else we do, we must not let up in continuing to make progress along these dimensions of diversity. Second, notwithstanding that, I do think we need to do a much better job of understanding and measuring the more subtle, cognitive and socio-economic dimensions of diversity. They are harder to identify and measure, as the information exists between our ears rather than on our faces. But that is precisely why unconscious biases may be largest and most in need of redress.