Keisha Bell, Head of Diverse Talent Management and Advancement
After nearly 15 years with DTCC, I’m excited to step into a new role that’s a top priority for the company and a subject that’s very close to my heart – increasing diversity across our ranks. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to apply my skills in Risk Governance and Product Management at the firm. Each of these experiences showed me that diversity is one of the most important success factors in solving the increasingly complex and global challenges we face as an industry. We’re proud that we’ve scored well against other industries with regard to race and ethnicity, but like many of our colleagues in financial services, the results of our actions have not always matched the passion of our words when it comes to the representation of women.
DTCC is a very special place to work, and we confront challenges like this head-on. That’s why I’m confident that we will solve the diversity issue and succeed in recruiting, retaining and promoting diverse talent and further strengthening our culture of inclusivity. Our Business Professional Networks (BPNs) transcend business lines and geographies and, as I can tell you from my own involvement in several of them, they’ve given my colleagues and me new avenues for personal and professional development.
In recent years, we’ve also made great progress in developing future diverse leaders with new emerging talent programs targeting IT and Operations for black and Hispanic employees, expanding leadership training across demographic groups and creating our “Voices of Inclusion” initiative to promote conversations about race in the workplace. Next on our agenda is introducing programs and processes to help us achieve greater diversity so that individuals from all groups are appropriately represented at all levels.
The Journey Ahead
“In looking at DTCC’s D&I journey, we’ve accomplished so much since we established a Diversity Council and our first Business Professional Networks (BPNs) nine years ago.” – Keisha Bell
I’m very excited about our journey ahead, but I’m also realistic that change takes time, patience and commitment. In the near term, our focus will be on advancing women of all diversities and backgrounds in leadership positions. DTCC’s employee population overall is about 63-percent men, 37-percent women – and only 30-percent of women are officers – so we have plenty of room to expand women’s leadership opportunities.
I’m also going to work in partnership with my colleagues to elevate our conversations and practices to further strengthen our culture of D&I. To me, diversity means everyone has a seat at the table – where the table looks like society at large. Inclusion means that everyone you’ve invited to sit there feels welcome and recognized. What’s more, everyone has a vital role to play as agents of change. DTCC’s D&I journey is not just for gay people or black women or Latinos or any other group: it’s for all of us, together.