The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 29 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Thomas: Business equity ownership is the single biggest driver to solve wealth inequality
“Let's be clear. The single biggest way that you change the differential of the wealth equation in this country or any developed nation is ownership, equity, ownership in scalable, saleable businesses.”
Thomas: Black business owners average one-seventh the equity of white peers
“African American business owners have on average about one seventh of the equity in their businesses of their white male counterparts.”
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: Emerging private market managers outperform on average despite fewer assets
“One of the counterintuitive things in private markets is I have invested a fair amount with emerging managers. Now, the irony is empirically, it says it makes sense. Like on average, even though they have a lot less in the way of assets, they outperform, but i…”
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: 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: 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: Under 2% of VC goes to women and diverse-owned firms
“When we look at markets like venture capital, and you say less than two percent of that capital is allocated to women in diverse-owned firms, but women and ethnically diverse people make up 70% of the population in expanding, that's a huge disconnect.”
Thomas: Most global impact capital focuses on environmental rather than social issues
“Because even if you think about impact investing, a lot of the emphasis in dollars globally Have really focused on the environmental side of the equation and not as much on the social impact side.”
Thomas: Lower middle market is the fastest-growing middle market segment but lacks capital
“If you look at the private markets, most of that focus is on the upper end of the middle market. And so you have these incredible businesses, Ted, I mean, 3040, fifty million dollars in revenue, great business plans, great growth potential who have trouble get…”
Thomas: Lower middle market has higher proportion of diverse-led companies
“And by the way, if you also have an interest in focusing on economic inclusion, You're going to have a higher percentage of those firms be actually diverse, owned, or led on a relative basis.”
Thomas: Debt investors need company growth to offset natural business contractions
“Whether you're looking for an equity return or even a debt return, you need the company to grow. And sometimes people say with debt, well, you don't really need the company to grow because they just have to pay back. And I challenge that a little bit because w…”
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: 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: 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: 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.”
Thomas: Executive career cycles operate on a natural five-year clock
“You know, as you move through about five years or so, you're usually looking at directionally some sort of change, whether it's an evolution of your role and things like that. So I think for all of us, there's sort of a natural clock where you're thinking abou…”
Thomas: Northern Trust had $170B dedicated to sustainable investing strategies
“I mean, we got to the point of our 1.3 trillion at the time in assets, we had a hundred and seventy billion just dedicated. To a different sustainable investing strategies.”
Thomas: Women start firms faster than men and represent nearly 60% of US grads
“Women start firms at a significantly faster rate than their male counterparts. Women now make up nearly 60% of the college graduates in our country.”
Thomas: The Copia Group tilts towards non-dilutive credit and hybrid solutions
“Our investment strategies are tilted towards solutions that come in forms that limit dilution to existing equity owners. So think about things like credit. So that would be a natural one, because there is potentially no dilution to existing equity owners there…”
Thomas: There are about 95,000 US companies with $5M–$100M in revenue
“Companies with revenue from five million to a hundred million in the US are about 95,000 companies.”
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 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…”