The conversation around diversity in the asset management industry has amplified in the last few years due to social events, research, and awareness. Progress in diversity is increasingly being recognized as a business imperative, especially in asset management. This is extremely encouraging because when we founded STREAM in the Summer of 2020, the most recent industry statistics we could find about the topic were several years stale. While we believe many in this industry have and continue to look to diversify their teams, due to lack of exposure and centuries of gatekeeping, you find most managers are left wondering, how?
We believe STREAM Foundation is an important first step in bridging an enormous gap and building out a more diverse pipeline of talent. We looked around at our peers and realized that the recruiting was all being done the same through specific schools, our networks, and specialty firms. So, we started the shift locally in Dallas, focusing heavily on colleges and universities that are often overlooked and have a large contingency of untapped talent. We made it our mission to do things differently, to take students that may need additional coaching or ones that didn’t have a network and provide them with an opportunity and mentorship.
Through STREAM's programming, students have received resume assistance, interview coaching, internship placement, courses to prepare them, mentorship, peer guidance, educational content through our speaker series, and travel and housing resources. Above all else, our alumni have gained life-long career support and a community to champion their career aspirations. We feel confident that we have built a team of volunteers with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, in which we have drawn strength from our differences and heightened our abilities as counselors and advocates. Our continued commitment to building a workplace reflective of our world, creates competitive advantages and positive advancement of the asset management industry, one student at a time.
Sue & Matt McKamy and Ellis & Stephen Thomas