Jonathan Reiss, CFO of Hamilton Insurance Group, called on the captive industry to be brave and make a collective difference on diversity, during his rousing industry keynote speech at the 2018 Bermuda Captive Conference.
Reiss said that finding a solution to the “devilishly complex issue” would be a “marathon and not a sprint” and challenged delegates to try and make a difference.
He stated: “As our children grow up into adulthood, the environment needs to be far more diverse and entirely inclusive. In other words, far healthier.”
“It needs more and more of us need to work on this, I want all of you to go home and open the dialogue.”
“Go back to your companies and be brave, talk to your CEOs and your boards. Make sure your boards know this is an important topic, I think collectively we will make a difference.”
Using statistics from the McKinsey report on diversity and inclusion, Reiss indicated that there was significant financial incentives to becoming a more diverse and inclusive company.
He said: “There is more than enough financial incentive to get this done.”
“Organisations that have embraced diversity and inclusion, and actively focus on it, are better managed and produce superior results because of it.”
“McKinsey just updated their seminal report on diversity and inclusion, it adds to the litany of proof that companies that embed diversity and inclusion in their business are more profitable.”
The report, which covers over 1000 companies in 12 countries and multiple industries, including insurance, suggests there is a statistically significant correlation between a more diverse leadership team and financial performance.
The report revealed that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 21 percent more likely to outperform on profitability and 27 percent more likely to have superior value creation.
Companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity on executive teams were 33 percent more likely to outperform on profitability and 27 percent more likely to have superior value creation.
On the other hand, companies in the bottom quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity were 29 percent less likely to achieve above average profitability than all other companies in the report’s data set.
According to Reiss, the industry is not making enough progress and in some cases was actually losing ground.
He added: “I believe we are at an inflexion point, attitudes are getting better but the current rate of progress is not good enough.”
“More and more organisations are realising that they must work harder on diversity and inclusion, and frankly be much more fearless in changing the status quo.”
