Schwab, Ariel Execs Speak Out on How Clients and Firms Can Boost Diversity by Jane Wollman Rusoff - ThinkAdvisor
When the issue is hiring more African American financial advisors, a firm’s top management must indeed support and sponsor the move. But the impetus must come from clients and employees, argues John W. Rogers Jr., chair and co-CEO of Ariel Investments, in a recent interview with ThinkAdvisor.
Clients “need to insist that the company they work with look like America. If wealthy families told their advisors, ‘We want to see a diverse team in our [advisory] relationship,’ all of a sudden, those institutions would show up with a diverse team,” Rogers contends in the joint interview with Kelly Johnson, fixed income portfolio manager with Charles Schwab Investment Management.
“The momentum [to hire more Black advisors] has to come from the bottom up,” Johnson concurs.
By virtue of their Ariel-Schwab Black Investor Survey, the firms are winners in multiple categories of the 2021 LUMINARIES, ThinkAdvisor’s new industry recognition program. Ariel and Schwab are recipients in the categories of diversity and inclusion, as well as thought leadership, among others.
