InvestmentNews launches workplace diversity and inclusion initiative

It is our hope that our new initiative will provide inspiration, education and awareness around this important issue for the financial advice industry.

Happy New Year! We hope you had a wonderful holiday season.

Like most of you, our team at InvestmentNews is starting 2018 with a long list of resolutions for how we can better serve our readers. With that in mind, we’re pleased to announce a new initiative aimed at fostering diversity and inclusion in the financial advice industry.

It stands to reason that industries that embrace diverse and inclusive work cultures will attract and retain top talent. For the financial advice industry to evolve into a true profession, it must look more like the population it serves — or will be serving over the next few decades.

It is our hope that our new initiative will provide inspiration, education and awareness around workplace diversity and inclusion.

We’ll start by committing to publishing content that ties back to four key themes around this issue: recruitment, training, culture and communication. That content will include staff-written articles, profiles, video, webcasts and thought-provoking columns from some of the brightest minds in the industry.

We’re also planning a special report on what’s being done — or could be done — to promote diversity and inclusion at individual advisory firms and throughout the industry.

In addition, we’re pleased to announce this industry’s first award and recognition program dedicated to diversity and inclusion. These awards will highlight and celebrate individual advisers, industry professionals, financial planning and advisory firms — and the firms that serve them, for their efforts to champion diversity and inclusion. We’ll begin the nomination process next month.

We believe that these awards, just like our successful Women To Watch initiative, will provide real-life examples to serve as inspiration for many.

We’d like to give a heartfelt thanks to our nearly 20-member diversity and inclusion advisory board members, whom we relied upon to help us fine-tune our strategy and areas of focus.

InvestmentNews is committed to taking action to cultivate a financial advice profession where diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed and respected, and where industry best practices for advancing diversity and inclusion can be shared across organizations.

We look forward to engaging with you — our reader — in this important conversation in the year ahead.

Suzanne Siracuse is the publisher and Frederick P. Gabriel Jr. is the editor of InvestmentNews.