HSBC banker who resigned over racism report says efforts to hire more black executives have failed

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LONDON (Reuters) – Banks are breaking promises to hire, retain and promote more black executives as prejudice and reluctance to change the good intentions of deadlock leaders, a former HSBC banker said who resigned this month because of the problems.

Ian Clarke, a former HSBC banker, poses for a photo in London, Britain August 12, 2021. Photo taken August 12, 2021. REUTERS / Peter Nicholls

Ian Clarke, a middle manager, left HSBC on August 3, citing his frustration with the speed and scale of his response to a report he wrote alleging racism within the bank.

It comes at a time when banks around the world say they are trying to implement pledges to improve diversity, after the murder of George Floyd in US custody in May 2020 sparked global protests. against racial injustice.

Europe’s largest bank said in July 2020 that it aims to double the number of black employees in senior positions by 2025, and CEO Noel Quinn told Reuters two weeks ago that the lender did not see the need to reaffirm this goal.

In his first interview since leaving, Clarke, 36, said he believes the bank is unlikely to achieve that goal under his current leadership and that the issue is industry-wide.

I think the number of black people in the bank has dropped dramatically, Clarke said.

In October 2020, when the new strategy was announced, the numbers I uncovered suggested that we only had 90 black executives in our 226,000 company, worldwide … and I currently estimate it. about 60 remain.

The 48-page Clarkes report, based on interviews with around 100 colleagues at HSBC, said the bank had fewer than five Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC) in senior positions in 63 of its 65 markets, the United States and Great Britain being the only exceptions.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the number of black executives at the bank.

HSBC did not address the details of Clarkes’ claims, but a spokesperson said: We are committed to improving diversity and inclusion at HSBC, and while we are moving forward, we know we still have work to do. do.

To meet our commitments, we are strengthening our recruitment processes, partnering with specialist recruitment firms and improving talent development opportunities.

In HSBC’s UK workforce, 2.4% of staff self-identified as black, but among senior executives the figure drops to 0.9%, in January 2021. The bank said it did not have up-to-date data.

Most other major UK investment banks say they are unable to disclose data on the ethnic diversity of their UK workforce, making it difficult to assess the industry’s progress on promises to increase the number of black employees.

PACE OF CHANGE

Born to a white mother and Jamaican father in London, Clarke said he was drawn to the bank because of the opportunity it provided for unprivileged people to succeed, enrolling in the training program in HSBC management in 2007.

He rose through the ranks and eventually joined the sales team of the Global Liquidity and Cash Management unit of lenders in New York.

Clarke wrote a report – on his own – called Project Speak Up on the state of diversity at HSBC, which he sent to senior executives in June.

George Floyd was a real wake-up call for me and a lot of people, and it made me re-evaluate my career in banking and all the things that had happened that at the time I dismissed as maybe just overwork or an ego, and now quite clearly joining the points that were racism, he said.

He said that while he welcomed the banks’ initial response to his report, he became disillusioned with the pace of change.

Of the 11 black and minority people on his sales team, nine have left HSBC in the past three years and none have joined to replace them, he said.

HSBC has not commented on this.

Clarke said he believes HSBC, like other banks, has good intentions in resolving the issues it raised, but has struggled with group thinking and the lack of understanding among senior white leaders in the experience of prejudice.

If you leave it to people who don’t understand these concepts to try to execute a strategy to correct them, I don’t see how this is anything other than a performative alliance, he said.

Reporting by Lawrence White; Elizabeth Howcroft Additional Reports; Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Alex Richardson

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