The Greenlining Institute, a nonprofit organization that works for equality in lending, studied racial/ethnic diversity in the workforce and management at federal financial regulatory agencies. While several of the organizations had workforce diversity, especially Blacks in agencies located in Washington, D.C., or cities, the lack of Latinos throughout the workforce and lack of all racial/ethnic diversity in the top levels of management was significant.

Greenlining feels that without an adequate understanding of these communities from senior leadership, regulatory agencies cannot effectively prevent marketplace discrimination. Other studies have documented the increasing race-based wealth gap.

“A glaring piece of data in the report is the huge lack of representation of Latinos,” says Orson Aguilar, executive director of Greenlining. “If their management more mirrored the workforce, it could have prevented the mortgage fiasco.”

Methodology

The Greenlining Institute initiated this study after the Dodds-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act created Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion in 20 regulatory agencies. The agencies surveyed were the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Banks in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco and St. Louis, as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. One agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, did not respond, and another, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was in the process of organizing and wasn’t ready to participate.

Greenlining requested workforce, management and senior-management demographic data from each of the agencies. Initially, Greenlining also requested supplier-diversity direct-contractor dollar spend for minority-owned business enterprises, women-owned business enterprises and suppliers owned by veterans with disabilities. However, the responses were limited and aren’t included in this report.

It took about five months to collect the workforce/management data, says Divya Sundar, community reinvestment fellow.  

Key Data Findings

* For the workforce, the most racially diverse agencies were the Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Banks in Atlanta, New York, Dallas and San Francisco.  

* The least diverse in the workforce were the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland, Kansas City and Minneapolis.

* Latino representation in the workforce ranged from a low of 0.9 percent at the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank and averaged 3.8 percent nationwide. By contrast, the DiversityInc Top 50 average 8.9 percent of their U.S. workforces as Latino.

* The federal agencies have a ratio of 1:2 when comparing Black senior managers to all Black managers, while the DiversityInc Top 50 have a ratio of 2:1 for the same variables. Senior management is defined as the top three levels of the organization.

* The DiversityInc Top 50 companies are comparable for Blacks in management but have 50 percent more Latinos in management than the federal agencies and double the percentages of Asians in management.

* The DiversityInc Top 50 companies have twice the percentages of Latinos and Asians in senior management as the federal agencies. Of the 15 agencies that submitted data, only 11 had any Blacks in senior management; only eight had any Latinos in senior management; and only six had any Asians in senior management.

* Three agencies, the Federal Reserve Banks of St. Louis, Boston and Cleveland, had only whites in the senior-management category.

Recommendations

The Greenlining Institute has created a community-based advisory board to ascertain next steps. Board members, including the National Council of La Raza, the National Association of Asian American Professionals, the Center for Responsible Lending, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Urban League of Young Professionals, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, will meet in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24 to begin to draft more formal recommendations for action. In the interim, Greenlining suggests:

* Transparency: Requiring all financial regulatory organizations to publish diversity data online

* Analysis: A study of recruitment and retention policies in the financial regulatory sector be undertaken

* Accountability: Establishing benchmarks, including region-specific benchmarks for the Federal Reserve Bank

See also: Did the Fed’s Stunning Lack of Diversity Cause the Housing Crisis?

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In a follow-up to my column “Can a White Man Speak With Authority on Diversity?”, a reader asks a critical question.

Comment: 

I find it fascinating over the pond about how the sheer notion that being experientially [sic] near a Black person can somehow give you some sort of osmotic sub-experience. It does not. If you are a white, heterosexual male with a good education, you will have little concept of the subtleties of racism and how it conspires in a myriad [sic] and mosaic of ways, and these micro-oppressions build up gradually and are pernicious for a lifetime.

Visconti has found a hook that is ironic but marketable. He will get more exposure, access to better marketing and media channels than Black people and more white male attendees at his conferences. He will benefit from being white and talking about the Black experience because he is white. It’s a beanfeast for him.

I have had bosses who do diversity and are white, but they really believed it, lived it and would lie in traffic for it. I’m not convinced in this case as he can only speak from the head, not the heart. 

And yes, I’m talking about race unapologetically, the cornerstone of most oppression. 

Response:

I completely agree with your first paragraph and your last paragraph. I both agree and disagree with the middle of your email. 

I understand how you can say it’s “marketable” and that I have a “beanfeast” because you’re looking at a successful business. It was nothing but a concept when we started out in 1997. “Diversity” existed as a business subject but was nowhere near where it is today. There were no outside investors that helped my business; however, there were and are courageous corporate people who see the DiversityInc vision and go to bat for us. 

One indication of the impact of our collective work is the number of companies that participate in the DiversityInc Top 50 competition. It has gone from 178 in 2004 to 535 in 2011. The results of the companies that achieve a spot on the DiversityInc Top 50 list have also increased; for example, percentages of people in structured mentoring and employee-resource groups have more than doubled, as have the percentages of bonuses paid to CEO direct reports for the accomplishment of diversity-management objectives. This all happened because DiversityInc applied metrics and honest witness to a business process. Our DiversityInc Top 50 companies are significantly better for women and/or Black, Latino and Asian executives by absolute measurement. Since metrics cannot be consistently evaluated for LGBT people and people with disabilities, we can only look at practices—but here, too, things are dramatically different than they were in 2004. We don’t recommend that companies chase race and gender numbers, but race and gender numbers act as a very good proxy for measuring the corporate culture. Read more about this:

The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity
DiversityInc Top 50: Methodology
About The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity 
DiversityInc Top 50 Survey FAQs

You are right in that I have benefited from being white—my entire life, but especially in my choice for my life’s work. I recognize the irony and tragedy that I, as a white man, must repetitively speak before mostly non-white, non-male, disabled and non-heterosexual people to spread this message. It hurts my heart every time I tell people who are oppressed that only the oppressed can lead the oppressor out of their behavior. As a society, we do not understand the words of Frederick Douglass, who said, “No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.” I agree with you that race is the cornerstone of most oppression, but I will add that gender is an even larger cornerstone than race.

I have respected that and have endeavored to give back as much as I can. I’ve been a trustee of Bennett College for Women for eight years, a trustee of Rutgers for four, and I’ve been on the foundation board of New Jersey City University (an HSI) for five. I’m on the board of The PhD Project and on the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel. All of this is unpaid work. Further, I’m not a passive board member; I have endowed scholarships at all three schools and am on the “heavy-duty” committees (I have chaired audit at Bennett for six years and have been on the nominating committee at Rutgers for three). I’ve raised more than $2 million as chair of the Rutgers Future Scholars fundraising committee. I have my own foundation, a 501(c)3, and 100 percent of my speaking fees are donated to the schools that I serve via my foundation. Nobody draws a salary from my foundation, and I donate all administrative costs. This year will be the fourth that I’ve donated roughly 33 percent of my take-home pay to charity. 

Those are facts and figures, but I hope you can see how much my heart is in this. It’s everything I do. I’ve had death threats and am currently being smeared by a hate-filled anonymous person via email (thanks for nothing for being an enabler, Yahoo). It scares the daylights out of me sometimes. Not so much for my own safety—I’m a master-rated rifleman and expert pistol shot—but I have a wife and children, and I travel quite a bit. You see, I “lie in traffic” for what I do every day.

>> Read more “Ask the White Guy” columns at DiversityInc.com.

The post Yeah, But Is Your Heart in Your Diversity Work? appeared first on DiversityInc.

The 2011 Venture Census survey shows that of the executives in investment roles, 89 percent are men and 11 percent are women (down 3 percent since 2008). Eighty-seven percent are white (down 1 percent). Nine percent are Asian (up 1 percent), 2 percent are Black or Latino  and 2 percent are of mixed race. In 2008, 2 percent were Latino and 1 percent were Black; mixed race was not reported. For more on this issue and existing wealth gaps, read about Goldman Sachs and the sub-prime lending crisis in DiversityInc magazine’s May 2010 issue.

The 2011 Venture Census polled approximately 600 professionals (79 percent male, 21 percent female) in both investment roles and administrative functions, such as chief financial officers and marketing and communications professionals. The first survey was conducted three years ago in 2008.

Diversity in gender data was a little more promising within the 2011 CFO positions (53 percent women and 47 percent men). Higher percentages of women were reported in the life-sciences (18 percent) and clean-technology (15 percent) industries, followed by information technology (12 percent business-to-business, 11 percent consumer). The sector for non-high-tech products and services only had 8 percent women investors.

Younger generations of workers saw higher levels of racial/ethnic diversity. Those in the industry less than five years totaled 77 percent white (down from 82 percent in 2008), 17 percent Asian, 3 percent Black or Latino and 3 percent mixed race. Of those younger than 30, 28 percent were women. The percentage of women decreased as age increased: 27 percent in the 30s age range, 22 percent in the 40s and 50s age ranges, and 13 percent at 60 or older.

However, these numbers are still low when compared with the demographics in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity. In these organizations, top executives—CEOs, direct reports to the CEO, and reports to the CEO’s direct reports—total 11.9 Black, 7.9 percent Latino and 7.3 percent Asian. More than half (53.1 percent) are women.

Here’s what people are saying about the data:

2011 Venture Census Results Out Today
Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, shares on his blog that the NVCA recognizes the need for more women in the venture-capital industry and its ties to business success.

Venture Industry Shows Few Diversity Gains In New Survey
The Wall Street Journal compares the 2011 Venture Census data to research from other companies funded by venture firms. It notes apparent tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar people among investors.

Venture Capital Remains White Boys Club
Fortune reports the Venture results with a fitting image that reads “Help Wanted. No Black Women Apply.”

2011 Venture Census Survey Results From NVCA
A personal blog, Signal to Noise, positively notes the hope for more diversity among future generations and offers links to an article about gender and diversity gaps in Silicon Valley.

Newsflash: Grass Is Green, Sky Is Blue, VCs Are White Men
The Venture Valkyrie blog discusses the potential connection between gender and racial gaps in the venture-capital industry and a lack of jobs for traditionally underrepresented groups in a struggling economy.

Guess How Many Venture Capitalists Are Black or Latino
The Ethnic Majority blog highlights the racial gaps in the industry, noting that the percentage of Blacks and Latinos in the United States each make up more than 10 percent of the total population.

Stay up to date on diversity-management news and best practices. Subscribe to the DiversityInc e-newsletter.

Referenced Articles:
As Wealth Gap Between Whites, Blacks & Latinos Grows, What Can Your Company Do?
Study: Women Still Not Getting to the Top Levels
Generational Employee-Resource Groups

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