Ron Taylor breaks down his work at T. Rowe Price this way: His day job for 20 years has been as a portfolio specialist in the equity division, a subject matter expert in that group who deals with institutional clients like pension funds. The rest of the time he’s devoted to opening the firm to hiring more diverse candidates for jobs — like analyst positions — that have had far too few Black or minority hires in the past.
“When I arrived here at T. Rowe Price no one ever uttered the word ‘diversity,’” Taylor said. But that changed with the 2007 hiring of James Kennedy as CEO and president.
“He asked me: ‘What’s it like to be Black at T. Rowe Price?’ I said: ‘If you’re serious, we have people, but I and others came from New York and have seen what some of the investment banks are doing with hiring. Now, we’re trying to build that channel and develop talent for that investment role.”
The firm started an annual business school day that brought in two dozen students of color, and expanded that via Zoom during the pandemic to 50 to 100 students.
“We’re feeding the pipeline of the next generation of portfolio managers.”
— Bruce Kelly