eVestment to Drive Transparency and Data Standardization of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Asset Management

Authors

Nasdaq for Asset Owners

Andres Ramos

Published

Jun 21, 2021 9:25AM EDT

eVestment will make its asset manager diversity, equity and inclusion (D&I) data available for investors free of charge in an effort to improve transparency and standardization across the industry. The initiative is intended to provide an efficient and streamlined process for diversity disclosure. While the reporting is entirely voluntary, over 20% of the asset management firms on eVestment, representing 6,182 strategies, have responded to the D&I data collection program since January 2021.

Access to consistent, reliable and accurate data is critical to advance transparency in D&I. eVestment is committed to working with asset managers and asset owners to improve the data collection and discovery framework, and empower investors with D&I statistics on both firm and strategy levels.

“The investment community is on a journey in creating a more inclusive environment and ensuring that asset managers hired by pensions, foundations, family offices and endowments better reflect the diversity of asset owners and the end beneficiaries,” said Lauren Dillard, Executive Vice President and Head of Investment Intelligence, Nasdaq. “Institutional investors representing trillions of dollars in assets already leverage eVestment for data and analytics. Our mission is to build on that community to further the industry progress in diversity and inclusion.”

In January, eVestment launched the updated D&I questionnaire as part of a new industry-wide D&I data collection initiative, now dubbed the Institutional Investing Diversity Cooperative. The questionnaire offers asset managers options to highlight both qualitative and quantitative aspects of their D&I efforts.

Additionally, recognizing that asset owners seek to understand the state of diversity and inclusion across the entirety of their portfolios – both public and private markets strategies – Nasdaq is collaborating with the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) and FCLTGlobal to extend the effort to a standardized approach for making data from private fund managers available to Limited Partners, reflecting diversity of leadership and decision making at both at the fund manager and the portfolio company level. As with the IIDC collaboration, this effort encompasses both the quantitative and qualitative, contextual data that illustrates how managers are advancing D&I in their own organizations.

Asset owners are demanding data beyond headline ownership stats, and the new questionnaire gives managers the ability to highlight information like hiring practices and mentor programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in their organizations.

Key findings from D&I data collection initiative include:

55.3% of key professionals at the firms reporting D&I data are white males. The second largest group is Asian males, at 12.15% followed by white women at 9.43%. Black males only made up 1.86% of the key professionals at firms reporting data and black females made up only .59% of key professionals at reporting firms.
322 strategies across 48 firms report that some percentage of the decisions makers on their teams are military veterans.
288 firms indicate they have mentorship programs available for women and minorities and 244 firms indicate they have a pay-parity policy in place.

In developing the questionnaire, eVestment recognized that under laws in various U.S. and international jurisdictions providing diversity statistics might not be allowed. For instance, 87 firms reporting to eVestment report they cannot supply D&I data due to firm policy and 74 firms report they can’t provide data due to privacy regulations and laws in their area that impact all of some of the team. Similarly, for very small teams, providing diversity statistics could highlight personally identifying information that firms or members of firm teams might prefer to keep private. In these instances, the commentary sections become even more important.

Complimentary access to D&I data

Existing eVestment clients can access D&I information at no additional cost. Investors that are not eVestment clients can contact solutions@evestment.com or visit www.evestment.com/diversity to learn how they can access it free.