It’s one thing to make a public declaration that an advisory firm is on board with the benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s quite another to take actionable steps toward results and then follow through with a plan that calculates results.
That is how The Finity Group, a Portland, Oregon-based RIA, made sure it achieved its goals.
“We were looking for specific areas we wanted to focus on for increased knowledge in the DEI space,” Jeff Pratt, financial advisor and vice president of compliance at the $750 million advisory firm, said of the 2020 brainstorming session that kicked off the accountability process.
“We took the message to the senior leadership team and explained that we wanted to implement ongoing training to not only display to the public our efforts but also to people in the organization to improve on personal awareness,” he added. “The original goal was to make sure we had a DEI lens for the decisions we made when interacting with clients and amongst each other at the firm.”
Pratt said the commitment was underscored and supported by the hiring of a consulting firm to direct the effort, which included process improvements such as adopting blind-resume interviews and conducting DEI-related due diligence on partner companies and “making sure internal team members are cognizant of everyone’s background and experiences.”
The results and ongoing action plan, which Pratt described as “our pillars,” specifically focus on “sharpening our voice both internally and externally, and recruiting and hiring more inclusively and retaining those individuals.”
—Jeff Benjamin