Aug 24, 2020 · 1h 4m · capital-allocators
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion 3: Shundrawn Thomas – Leading the Way (Capital Allocators, EP.153)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the Capital Allocators podcast, Northern Trust Asset Management President Shundrawn Thomas shares insights on navigating racial dynamics in finance, operationalizing diversity and equity within asset management, and anchoring executive leadership in personal values and commercial accountability.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Ted holds 17.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Ted as informed peer 1.3 Guest teaching 2.5 Guest disagreement 0.5 Ted pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Ted, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 43:20 Pushing back against superficial internship programs
Shundrawn respectfully but firmly rejects the conventional corporate approach of relying solely on entry-level internships instead of addressing executive and board representation.
Hardest push from Ted ▶ 33:24 Probing affirmative marginal hiring decisionsTed presses Shundrawn on whether and when it is appropriate for organizations to incrementally favor diverse candidates on the margin when all else is not equal.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:50 Reframing colorblindness to color awarenessShundrawn educates the listener by clarifying that while people of goodwill aim to be colorblind, effective leadership requires being actively color-aware to value different cultural perspectives.
Ted holds their own ▶ 45:04 Playing devil's advocate on performance-only asset managementTed articulates the hard-nosed asset allocator perspective that investors might exclusively care about raw returns over diversity, pushing Shundrawn to defend the business case.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Ted as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Ted pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Career Journey and Transition to People Management | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Ted opens the interview with standard biographical prompts regarding Shundrawn's background and entry into people management. Shundrawn shares his personal journey and the mentorship he received without friction or conflict. | |
| Navigating Racial Dynamics and Stereotypes in Corporate Settings | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Ted asks Shundrawn about navigating racial dynamics and corporate culture at Northern Trust. Shundrawn offers an educational breakdown of subtle biases and cultural archetypes without pushback from Ted. | |
| Defining Multi-Faceted Diversity and Authenticity | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Ted asks Shundrawn to define what he means by diverse teams. Shundrawn gently reframes the concept of 'colorblindness' to 'color-aware' and breaks down diversity across ethnicity, thought, and style. | |
| Unconscious Bias and Historical Wall Street Normative Standards | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Ted asks if Shundrawn ran into situations where diversity was rejected. Shundrawn illustrates historical normative standards on Wall Street trading floors and the importance of speaking truth. | |
| Transforming Recruitment Through Shared Values | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Ted asks about actionable recruiting methodologies. Shundrawn explains how establishing core shared values directly drives structural modifications to hiring slates and panels. | |
| Mitigating Bias and Executive Action in Talent Selection | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Ted asks two practical follow-ups probing how to recruit diverse interviewers when starting from a low base, and how to think about favoring candidates on the margin. Shundrawn explains leaders must sometimes explicitly put a thumb on the scale. | |
| Building Psychological Safety, Mentorship, and Leadership Representation | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Ted asks about post-hiring training and executive representation. Shundrawn explains psychological safety and respectfully critiques firms that rely solely on entry-level internships without addressing leadership diversity. | |
| The Business Case: Diversity as a Performance Driver | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Ted raises the industry argument that allocators might only care about cold performance numbers. Shundrawn addresses the fallacy by citing research on complex problem solving and the mean-reverting nature of returns. | |
| Post-Pandemic Momentum, Systemic Equity, and Corporate Partnerships | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Ted asks about industry momentum and tangible steps coming out of the pandemic. Shundrawn delivers an impassioned explanation distinguishing transactional charity from systemic economic equity, citing criminal justice statistics. | |
| Establishing Family Values and Long-Term Life Mission | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Ted asks about Shundrawn's family value-setting process and transitions to standard closing questions in a warm and reflective conclusion. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Thomas: Most professional services firms fail to provide pre-management training
“Maybe it's one of the dirty secrets about, like, most professional services firms is that more than not, you actually don't, prior to going into some sort of management capacity, get formal management training.”
Thomas: Black professionals navigate subtle workplace bias and preceding stereotypes
“If you're an African American, if you're a person from a racial standpoint that's characterized as black, there are so many things that you deal with in a sense, in a direct sense, but a lot of them are subtle, particularly in the workplace, because there are …”
Thomas: Corporate cultures operate on performance capital and relational capital
“All cultures have two forms of capital, performance capital and relational capital, but Northern Trust as an organization is a highly relational culture.”
Thomas: Leaders must be color aware rather than colorblind
“I know that people of good intent and goodwill will say things like I'm colorblind. And I know what they mean by that, but the reality is we're not really colorblind. At our best, we actually, if we want to use the term color, we need to be color aware, becaus…”
Thomas: 600-person Wall Street trading floor had only five Black professionals
“I think on our, the one trading floor that I worked on, there were approximately 600 professionals. My rough recollection was there were no more than counting me, I believe, five African Americans on the whole floor. And I think there were only to my best reco…”
Thomas: Northern Trust set minimum diversity requirements on interview panels
“So one of the things that we did is both in terms of gender diversity and ethnic diversity, we set explicit expectations in terms of minimum representation on our interview panels. We also set new processes in place for the HR teams or the recruiting teams tha…”
Thomas: Northern Trust had female candidates interviewed without female panelists
“I found two instances where we had extraordinarily talented Female candidates come in interviewing our firm, and we have a reasonable amount of gender diversity. Not one single person on their interview schedule was a woman.”
Thomas: Leaders must intervene directly when hiring processes fail to yield diversity
“If you're in a culture, and despite the best efforts to expand opportunity, and despite changing the processes, you're not getting better outcomes. It ultimately then falls on the leader to make some decisions, to, from time to time, actually put the thumb on …”
Thomas: Northern Trust AM's 2008 leadership had zero women and one minority
“When I joined the asset management executive leadership team which was back in 2008, it was not a particularly diverse team. As a matter of fact, there was one gentleman who was an African American who moved to a different part of the organization when I joine…”
Thomas: Nine of 15 Northern Trust AM leadership members are diverse
“Like, so if you look at our team today, we've got a leadership team with 15 people on it. Nine of the members of our team are either women or ethnically diverse. So, you know, we have six people who are ethnically diverse. We have six women. Some of that overl…”
Thomas: Internship diversity programs fail without diverse representation at executive levels
“I just don't fundamentally believe it's enough for firms to say, we really want to change our diversity, so our starting point and our focus is going to be the establishment or expansion of our internship programs. Now, let me be clear. I'm big on internship p…”
Thomas: Diverse Teams Solve Complex Problems Better via Varied Cognitive Toolsets
“Diverse teams are particularly well adept at solving more complex problems, and it's kind of a simple reason. It actually makes sense intuitive. Like, if you and I, like, once you get a certain level of IQ, everything above that is just limited incremental ben…”
Thomas: Client Retention in Asset Management Depends on More Than Investment Returns
“We talk about investment performance and it is important, but investment performance is mean reverting. Which means that even when you're a great investor, you're not gonna have the top, in a sense, performing funds or products or however you measure it all th…”
Thomas: Discrimination Stifles Economic Growth for Entire Countries
“Why discrimination is not a problem just for people of color, But it actually retards the growth and economic vitality of our entire country and countries around the world.”
Thomas: Corporate Charity Cannot Remotely Solve Systemic Inequity
“Charitable intent is a good thing. But charity will not remotely solve the issue we have. And the issue that we have is not that we have not been charitable enough. The issue that we have is we have not taken accountability for the inequities that our consciou…”
Thomas: Black Americans Face 46% of US Drug Convictions Despite 13% Usage
“If I look at Blacks, we make up 13% or so, depending on when the last time you did the census of the population, 13, 14%, that make up the same percentage of drug users. But we make up 36% of arrest for drug conviction and 46% of drug convictions.”