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Women in Finance Charter

2022 PROGRESS UPDATE

Columbia Threadneedle Investments signed the Women in Finance Charter in March 2016, our pledge to implement change and continuous improvement to drive better gender balance across our EMEA* business. When we signed the Charter, we had 36% representation of women across our total EMEA employee population, as of September 2022 this had increased to 41%.

Woman in finance charter logo
We have gender representation targets in five categories to track our progress at various levels within our UK workforce and in 2022 we met two of our five targets. We increased the percentage of women in the workforce** from 39% to 41% and the percentage of investment professionals who are women from 35% to 37%. These results show our progress but also reflect that there are areas for improvement.
In response, this year we launched a refreshed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Action Plan for the EMEA region. We also appointed a new global DEI director for Columbia Threadneedle, based in the UK, to spearhead the DEI activities across our organisation in tandem with Ameriprise’s global head of DEI, based in the US.
Nick Ring, CEO for EMEA, is the executive sponsor and champion for our regional diversity and inclusion strategy, which aligns with Columbia Threadneedle’s global DEI strategy. Our objective is to change our workforce over time to better reflect our client base and the broader population by increasing the percentage of women, those from ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups, across the organisation.

In November 2021 Ameriprise acquired BMO’s Global Asset Management business in EMEA to incorporate into the Columbia Threadneedle group. As we come together, taking the strengths and learnings from each business has provided an opportunity to optimise our DEI Action Plan.

This DEI Action Plan is based on four pillars:

Checked document

Governance & Accountability

Organisation and accountability for DEI initiatives are aligned and embedded appropriately across the business through:
  • Agreed individual and tailored DEI goals for every senior leader providing clear accountability for driving results across the business
  • A DEI dashboard reviewed quarterly by the regional governance committee to track progress
  • Refocusing our employee-led Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Group to align with our core DEI agenda
  • The appointment of a new DEI director, who works in partnership with the global DEI lead and adds further support regionally to accelerate progress
  • Launch of a self-disclosure campaign to improve the data on women, and other underrepresented groups, in our workforce
Hand shake

Recruitment

We continue to focus on attracting a diverse talent pool through an inclusive hiring process by taking these steps:
  • Review existing recruitment partnerships as well as the addition of new ones to attract diverse talent
  • Job descriptions containing inclusive language and no unintentional bias, this is in addition to unconscious bias training for hiring managers
  • Candidate shortlists that include a diverse selection of talent
People in lecture

Development & Leadership

We provide internal and external training programmes to develop women and strengthen the inclusive leadership skills of all employees, including:
  • Establishment and tracking of effective development plans and career conversations for all mid/senior-level women, including tools and training to empower leaders
  • Inclusive leadership training with a robust DEI curriculum that includes unconscious bias courses
  • Ongoing support and executive sponsorship of business resource (employee) networks and mentoring programmes
Person speaking out of a megaphone

Advocacy

We look for opportunities to champion DEI issues, raising awareness internally and externally, both through our leadership team and corporate partnerships with the following actions:
  • Columbia Threadneedle is a member of a number of industry organisations and partnerships, including The Diversity Project and Business in the Community. During 2022 Columbia Threadneedle sponsored the Black Women in Asset Management conference in London.
  • Our EMEA CEO, Nick Ring, endorses and actively participates in our DEI forums:
    • As executive sponsor for the Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Group, Nick Ring reviews and approves employee-led initiatives aimed at supporting inclusion and accelerating progress for women and all underrepresented groups
    • Nick is also a member of the DEI Steering Committee for Ameriprise Financial which guides the DEI vision, mission and strategy for the global organisation

Columbia Threadneedle’s position relative to our targets in the five categories that we track, as at 30 September 2022 , is as follows:

Columbia Threadneedle Investments % representation of women
30-Sep-22
30-Sep-21
30-Sep-20
2021-2023 target range
Board~
22%
27%
36%
35-45%
Executive Committee
18%
38%
33%
35-50%
Senior management
16%
19%
19%
30-40%
Investment professionals
37%
34%
34%
30-50%
Total employees
41%
39%
39%
40-50%

~Threadneedle Asset Management Holdings Sarl

These five categories were defined with the objectives of:

  1. tracking the pipeline of talent
  2. providing transparency and accountability
  3. identifying areas of strengths and opportunities for improvement
  4. providing a stretch goal that is aspirational and challenging.

Historically, attrition has negatively impacted our performance against our gender targets and this continues to be the case. While we recognise we need to improve and that achieving gender parity across our employee population will take time, our refreshed DEI Action Plan focuses on areas where we believe we can accomplish tangible progress.

In 2023 we will report on our expanded employee population to include those who joined the organisation through the acquisition in 2021. As part of this we will consider and restate our gender representation target ranges.

*Europe, Middle East and Africa

** Data submitted to the Women in Finance Charter is based on our UK employees

Progress Updates

PDF

Women in Finance Charter 2021 Progress Update
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