Building Diverse Teams For Future of Private Markets

How can private markets teams build diverse teams—and why is it essential to do so?

At the 2022 Interact Conference, Melinda Wright, Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at Cambridge Associates joined for a fireside chat to discuss these and other questions.

In conversation with Jennifer Theiss, Head of Sales for Software Solutions at S&P Global Market Intelligence, Ms. Wright shared insights from her career and from her current role leading DEI at Cambridge Associates, a leading investment firm in private markets investing.

From education to philanthropy to private markets

Ms. Wright spoke of her own career journey and how it shaped her approach to DEI at Cambridge Associates. Through prior roles in education and philanthropy, she encountered examples of organizations with tremendous resources and the desire and mission to allocate them. Both those experiences illuminated Ms. Wright's approach to DEI.

In discussing inclusion initiatives, Ms. Wright talked about an opportunity gap, rather than an achievement gap. The concept of an opportunity gap acknowledges the arbitrary circumstances into which we are born that sometimes determine our outcome.

Keeping an open mind

Ms. Wright described how she started her tenure in her current role with a listening tour, and she emphasized keeping an open mind in conversations around DEI. She talked about the idea of creating "a room of the willing," a group of people who are open to having a conversation about differences and commit to making change.

In the private markets, where even small firms and teams are often global, starting with this receptive posture can also help bridge dramatic regional or cultural differences in perspectives on where progress needs to be made.

Measuring progress

The idea of mentorship is frequently emphasized as a way to open doors to developing diverse talent, alongside other policies and practices to promote greater equity. Connecting these to outcomes requires a more rigorous approach.

Looking for criteria to benchmark internal progress on inclusion is tricky because it can subjective, but data is still an important part of advancing the conversation around DEI. Ms. Wright spoke about several ways to develop hard data: one approach is to focus on leaders at senior levels and to develop an inclusion index. A more comprehensive retention, promotion, and attrition analysis can shed further light on all levels of the organization.

Setting goals and taking action

Ms. Wright emphasized small, concrete steps that firms can make to advance change: for example, asking senior managers to include a DEI-oriented goal for their teams. Although in her experience this idea was well-received, colleagues still needed specific suggestions about how to accomplish it. Setting small goals, such as attending an employee resource group event or bringing an interesting DEI article to a meeting, made it easier to take a first step.

People want to understand how DEI tracks and influences what they do every day, underscoring the business case for diversity. To that end, it's important to get granular to translate DEI goals into what's meaningful for the company. These actions all help add up to making DEI part of the firm's DNA.

When asked about what a similar conversation about DEI will look like in alternative assets in five years, Ms. Wright pointed out that today's environment would have been unimaginable to past generations. She gave a call to action to the audience to take the discussion back to their own firm.

S&P Global provides industry-leading data, software and technology platforms and managed services to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in financial markets. We help our customers better understand complicated markets, reduce risk, operate more efficiently and comply with financial regulation.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.