DEI must be front and center to face inequalities

Transcript:

Nicole Casperson [00:00:03] Black History Month may be winding down, but for our industry and frankly, everyone out there elevating and amplifying black voices is something we need to be doing every single day. While progress may be slow. Our financial advice industry is making tangible strides to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion is more than just dialog. With us to share his experience is Craig Young, managing director and national business development executive at Merrill Lynch. Craig’s Passion Project is his role as chairman of the Merrill Lynch African-American Leadership Council. He is also a member of the Bank of America Black Executive Leadership Council. Thank you so much for joining us, Craig. How are you?

Craig Young [00:00:46] I, listen, I’m doing fantastic and it’s great to be here with you.

Nicole Casperson [00:00:49] Fantastic. So talk to us more about your background that led you to your two impactful leadership roles today at Merrill.

Craig Young [00:00:58] Yep, believe it or not, my background is in coaching, college football, college sports, and to me, there’s like a big time parallel between the two. When you think about coaching, it’s all about having a common purpose and putting others first. And I would say our industry and wealth management is exactly the same. It’s just all about elevating our clients and our advisors experience and putting tools and resources in their hands that allow them to do that at a really high level.

Nicole Casperson [00:01:23] Fantastic. Research shows the more diverse teams who are more successful. How has your somewhat newly minted leadership role with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management helped transform the company culture and just business overall?

Craig Young [00:01:36] Well, I was first one to recognize I’m in a privileged spot. There have been so many people who have come before me as we think about Black History Month that have given me this opportunity. And then I would also say I don’t think I’ve changed what we’re doing here culturally at the organization. Diversity and inclusion is built into the fabric fabric of who we are as a firm. And it starts at the top with our parent company, Bank of America, and then it feeds into our specific Merrill Lynch line of business. And so when Andy Sieg took over as president of Merrill Lynch years ago, one of the things he did was build diversity into the framework of our leadership messages in the way that we run and and operate our business is part of our overall goals in the way that we’re evaluated broadly as a leadership team. And it’s designed to increase diversity among both our advisory ranks and also across the board. And so for us, quite frankly, it’s not just a moral imperative. Diversity is a commercial imperative in structuring it within our operating framework is key to that.

Nicole Casperson [00:02:42] Absolutely. Tell us a bit more about Merrill’s black and African-American counsel and some of those actions coming from this council that are helping move that needle on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Craig Young [00:02:55] Look, you you hit it in the intro. This is my passion work. I absolutely love what I do on the council because it gives me an opportunity to to pay it forward. But the council itself was formed in twenty fourteen. But the group had been getting together here at Merrill Lynch for a number of years and been supported by the firm, by the firm. I was about twenty five of us on the council. Year in, year out composition is mostly advisors and specifically we’re locked in on that inclusive element of diversity and inclusion. It’s our firms kind of responsibility and leave to ensure we have representation in our council’s responsibility to ensure we’re creating a family and making people feel included along the way. So how do we do it? Well, first and foremost, we have a dedicated group of what we call black African-American practice management consultants who are specifically working only with our black African-American advisors. And this is on things as granular as one on ones to help coach and help teams strive and push themselves to the next level, that one on one coaching and then all the way through big, broad, sweeping things like the national symposiums that we have. And in fact, we actually have one here at one o’clock this afternoon that we’re very excited about as an organization. But we also do other things as well. We have specific, dedicated trainings for our broader black African-American advisory group, where we partner with third party partners to do it. And then there’s, of course, a healthy dose, a healthy dose, I should say, of peer to peer that we do across the firm where we get some of our top FA’s from from across the firm, regardless of color persuasion, to work specifically with our black African-American advisors. We want to advance themselves as well and peer to peer record of what we do here as an organization and is built into the way that we support our black African-American advisors as well.

Nicole Casperson [00:04:42] My last question for you is what are steps that our wealth management industry can take to ensure that we’re amplifying black voices every single day?

Craig Young [00:04:50] Look, I mean, you know, I can speak for what we do around that and that we believe in accountability and transparency. And so, as you heard me say earlier, diversity, inclusion is built into the framework of the way we operate as a company from Bank of America on down through our respective lines of businesses. And as such, it always stays front and center. So to the point earlier about this not being a once and done conversation, it can’t exist that way within our firm because it’s just the way we operate and do business. So I would say first and foremost, it’s going to be around accountability and that helped drive that broader commercial imperative. The other piece is transparency, being willing to be bold and recognize that certainly while we’ve made some strides, there’s still more to go. We got more room to go and being willing to be transparent about where we are and then hold ourselves accountable to where we want to be, I think puts us in a great position to take big strides as it relates to diversity, inclusion. I would encourage all of our other partners across the industry to do the same. And if we do, I think we can make a meaningful difference as a broader industry.

Nicole Casperson [00:05:54] One hundred percent. I think we’re moving beyond just dialog. Right. And we’re creating those action items, and that’s what’s going to help speed up the process of combating racial inequalities every single day, especially in our financial services industry. Thank you so much, Craig, and thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in. If you have any questions or interested in hearing more, you can find me on Twitter @NicoleCasperson, and I’d be happy to share Craig’s info as well. Thank you so much again for tuning in. And we’ll see you next time.