Despite challenges, DCIIA honorees embrace, speak up about importance of diversity, equity and inclusion

Diversity, equity and inclusion have driven Elizabeth Aidoo’s decisions in her life. Growing up in a “largely homogenous” area in Wisconsin, she said she always wanted to be in a more diverse place, as well as interact and learn about people from different backgrounds — and vice versa.

Cultural competence and awareness of differences “helps us harness the power of what I think makes our country so awesome — which is that we have so much diversity,” Aidoo said. “If we are able to better understand one another, connect with one another and leverage those strengths — it’s just, there’s so much power in that … on a more global kind of view, if we could do that in every which way, there’d be so much more world peace.”

After studying intercultural communications at Seton Hall University — which she said she attended due to the New Jersey-based school ranking high in diversity — and teaching English in countries in Latin America and Africa, she returned to the U.S. seeking her next job. What piqued her interest was a listing for a bilingual educator at Francis Investment Counsel — a role that would make her the financial wellness services provider’s first bilingual team member as well, she said.

Since joining eight years ago, Aidoo is now a financial planner, as well as director of DEI and Spanish language services at the firm’s Brookfield, Wis., headquarters. On top of her work to make financial wellness accessible for plan participants who do not speak English, she is the founder and chair of Francis’ DEI committee, which looks internally at how it can make its policies more equitable and inclusive and promotes activities such as unconscious bias trainings.

“We just need to all learn together, and I can help with that,” she added. “But what I didn’t realize is that oftentimes, when we are in such bubbles, people can get defensive ... That’s something that I will say, (and) it’s something that we know exists in our country right now.”

For her work, Aidoo is among the 34 leaders and 27 rising stars being recognized by the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association in its Leaders and Rising Stars program.

Also marking its 15th anniversary, the industry group is celebrating individuals “who have distinguished themselves through the meaningful impacts they are making in their organizations, to our industry and in their communities,” said President and CEO Lew Minsky.

Now in its fifth year, the award program was previously named the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Awards.

When describing why they were being recognized, some honorees said they were nominated by their employers, which have acknowledged the work they’ve done to create community in the office as well as improve the quality of life outside of it.

All of the honorees have helped extend access and opportunity to others, said Yemi Rose, who founded the financial wellness platform OfColor. His business, which is targeted at employees of color, was acquired in November by financial coaching services provider Finance Finesse.

Over the years, institutional investors have bolstered their efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. A 2023 analysis by Willis Towers Watson found that greater diversity in an investment team enables better performance.

Taking different viewpoints into consideration and seeing potential in everyone is what good leadership looks like, said honoree T. Katuri Kaye, director at the law firm Trucker Huss. In addition to being a lawyer, she is the director of diversity, equity and inclusion at the law firm. Her career was shaped by an older Russian man who saw potential in her and taught the young Black mentee how to become a great ERISA lawyer, she said.

“I think the most exciting thing is just when I open the news every day and wonder, ‘Is diversity still happening?’ I don’t think there’s an uneventful day right now,” Kaye said. “But it’s good because I appreciate the challenges that our companies are facing (and) because it really allows us to see who’s really doing the work, who believes in the work and who’s going to be consistent with respect to the work.”

To diversity advocates who may feel discouraged, Rose said “we’re definitely not where we need to be, but we’ve come a long, long way” in terms of progress since the civil rights movements in the 1960s.

“Sometimes, you’re going to take a couple steps forward, and you’re going to get pushed back a step,” Rose said. “But as long as the arc bends forward toward progress, we’re going to be all right.”

Before anything else, Trucker Huss’ Kaye noted that when talking about what “diversity, equity and inclusion” means to her, she noted what’s become of the three-letter acronym.

“By using ‘DEI’ — especially with how it’s been weaponized these days — we’re taking power away from what it actually is,” she added. To her, each pillar is defined as follows:

• Diversity: “A way to appreciate and benefit this environment that I’m already in, considering the fact that we literally are not the same. And because we’re not the same, I can gain something from your perspective, and you can gain something from my perspective as well.”
• Equity: “Acknowledging that things have not been even for a long time, based on different disparities, based on so many systemic things as we bring into the conversation … and doing what is in our power to level the playing field.”
• Inclusion: “Making sure that everyone has a voice.”

“We live in a diverse society,” Kaye added. “There’s nothing that we can do about that.”

When it comes to defined contribution plans, industry members are increasingly considering diversity of plan participants and strategies to get groups — such as Generation Z, the newest entrants of the workforce — to save for retirement. Kaye said conversations surrounding such as workforce diversity and retirement didn’t happen when she was still a junior lawyer, but they’ve become more prevalent in her nearly 20 years practicing ERISA law.

Additionally, DCIIA honorees who spoke with P&I noted that there’s more to diversity than race-based considerations. Under the umbrella are gender diversity, neurodiversity, veterans as well as people with disabilities.

Inclusion is about “being perfectly imperfect and celebrating that that around the table,” noted Cheryl Pipia, head of global sales management at T. Rowe Price.

“When you are around the table, you get everyone’s best brain power because people aren’t worried about ... what they should fit into,” she said. Instead, they recognize “their accountability to bring in what’s different to increase the conversation and to lead to better outcomes,” she added.

And when it comes to financial investments, honorees said portfolios also need to be diversified.

“We preach diversity for your investment perspective,” said Tyndale Brickey, co-portfolio manager for the special global equity team at Allspring Global Investments. “You’re not going to put all your money in one place and diversify your risk exposure. It’s important to have diversity of thought so you can avoid groupthink.”

Seeking change, entrepreneurship

Earlier in her roughly 30-year career in asset management, Pipia would combine her vacation time with personal development. On travels to countries such as Nepal and Tanzania, she would engage in hands-on volunteer work, which led way for her in 2014 to found the Mission & Movement Foundation, a nonprofit that operates in a way that she said speaks to her.

With humanity and dignity at its center, the organization was founded under the premise that “you can make really big impact with small action,” Pipia said. Starting with small programs in Kenya and Ghana, Mission & Movement recently opened a school in Kenya, and is in the process of building a vocational training center, she added.

Pipia is not the only person who founded their own initiatives to level the playing field.

After working communications roles at BlackRock and Prudential Financial, Rose launched OfColor in 2020, drawing from his own experiences as a day trader as well as an Jamaican immigrant figuring out how to send remittances to his family. While 401(k) plans did not exist in Jamaica, people funded their retirements using the assets they were able to accumulate through their lives, he added.

Not all employees are necessarily aware of what benefits are available to them, and for typically for employees from minority groups, they tend to be the ones taking the most from hardship from withdrawing from their 401(k) accounts, Rose said. Leaning on cultural competency, his goal with OfColor was to produce financial technology that plan participants felt was accessible, as well as financial coaches who understood their lived experience.

After the pandemic forced most workers in the industry to work remotely, employees at Wells Fargo Asset Management “wanted and craved connection,” said Christine Collins, head of sub-advisory strategy at the asset manager’s current incarnation, Allspring.

After the firm became independent of Wells Fargo in 2021, the formation of connectivity groups for employees of diverse groups as well as allies gave way for cross-company collaboration, said colleague Brickey, who alongside Collins co-led the women’s connectivity group at Allspring for two-and-a-half years. Since meeting each other through the group, Brickey and Collins have become close friends, they said.

Among the initiatives the group has created include a formal mentorship program, book clubs and virtual events with featured speakers, which have drawn more than 100 attendees across international offices.

T. Rowe Price’s Pipia is also the chair of the investment firm’s pride-focused business resource group, and the executive sponsor for the women’s group. In addition to learning how to become an advocate and ally through all of the firm’s groups, she said getting involved has helped her get to know and network with people across the organization of more than 7,000 employees in the U.S.

“Sometimes, life gets busy, right? You don’t have to carve out time to do that, and these organizations really help you do that,” Pipia added.

Working in a ‘shaky environment’

Honorees who spoke with P&I said programs such as DCIIA's are important to recognize those who are doing the work to advance diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Someone might nominate you for an award, but most times, people that are doing these roles are not getting a pat on the back every single day,” Trucker Huss’ Kaye said. “Sometimes, they do get discouraged, and it’s just a shaky environment right now … we want the companies to see that it’s important, and we want the companies to know that they’re going in the right direction.”

For other members of the industry seeking to do similar work, honorees noted they didn’t do the work alone and turned to others for assistance. A key to their work — and piece of advice for peers — has been speaking up.

“I think it’s quite powerful to know that you are the only person that can bring what you have,” T. Rowe Price’s Pipia said on advice she would give younger peers entering the industry. “Nobody else can bring it, so when you think about it that way, it makes everything a little bit more exciting.”

Programs such as DCIIA’s have given Francis’ Aidoo hope and encouragement, she said.

Sometimes “it is tough to push through those moments of resistance” or challenges to the work she has done to build a more inclusive and equitable world, but the work people like herself do is “so worth it,” she added. Colleagues have come to her and disclosed personal parts of their identity to Aidoo, who said “it means the world” to her that these people feel they can be themselves around her.

The work to advance diversity, equity and inclusion “matters, and that’s in more ways than you realize,” Aidoo added. “It can touch more lives than you realize ... Just keep going.”