One Finance: Accountancy Age launches diversity campaign

Accountancy Age is today excited to announce the launch of ‘One Finance’, an editorial campaign in partnership with our sister publications within Contentive’s Finance Professionals Group – Financial Director and Global Treasurer.

One Finance will run across all three publications and explore the issue of diversity throughout the financial services sector.

Throughout the campaign, we will be bringing you stories about underrepresented groups, encompassing the gender gap, BAME, LGTBQ+, disabilities, age, social mobility, religion and nationality.

We will explore the people within these groups and their experiences in the financial services industry, what organisations are doing to improve diversity and what can be done to make the industry more open to everyone, while holding those who are failing to address the issue to account.

Through this campaign, we want to engage with our readership and understand the issues you have faced during your time in the financial sector, so please don’t hesitate to contact our editorial team and share your stories.

With that in mind, we invite you to take our short survey that will help give us a broad overview of our readership, your thoughts on diversity and where the industry stands when it comes to the subject.

Importance of Diversity

A study by recruitment firm Randstad, looking at BAME figures in the UK, found that the UK economy would be £24bn larger than if those from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds progressed their careers at the same pace as their white colleagues.

What’s more, companies in the top 25% for ethnic diversity were 33% more likely to achieve profit above the industry average, and companies with more ethnically diverse boards were 43% more likely to outperform on profits.

Organisations in the top 25% for gender diversity were 21% more likely to achieve profit about the industry average.

These are just a few statistics that show the benefit the financial services industry could gain from being more diverse, but Diversity is so much more than numbers, and while it could result in financial benefits for companies, the humanitarian benefits far outweigh this.

Having greater diversity of thought and experience enrich businesses and the people who work for them. True diversity means having as many differences as possible, and through One Finance, we aim to bring you as truer reflection as possible of the incredibly diversity of our industry, but also show how much room there is for improvement.

To answer the One Finance launch survey, CLICK HERE.