The Financial Services Institute unveiled a new partnership with the nonprofit organization INROADS to bolster mentorship and paid internship opportunities for high school and college-age students from underrepresented backgrounds in the financial services field.
FSI CEO Dale Brown announced the new partnership during the institute’s annual OneVoice conference, currently being held in Dallas. The news came as FSI released the results of a survey conducted in partnership with Broadridge Financial Solutions that underscored the low numbers of women and people of color in the industry’s ranks.
INROADS President and CEO Forest Harper joined Brown in making the announcement. Prior to assuming leadership at the NPO, Harper had a multidecade career in the corporate world. The organization was founded in 1970, and it forges relationships with corporate clients to create a pipeline for students to find opportunities for internships.
Brown said the first steps were to get INROADS connected early with member firms and asked conference attendees (and the institute’s board of directors) to be early adopters. After connecting with firms, INROADS and those firms would work together in developing what Brown called “customized partnerships” to find where interns could be placed.
“With a 51-year track record, they know the strengths they bring to partner with member firms to identify ‘what are the opportunities those member firms have,’” Brown said during a meeting with media at the conference.
According to Harper, the organization has more than 5,163 diverse students who could start as paid interns as early as this summer, either based in home offices or in the field.
As an example of their work, Harper detailed a previous partnership with J.P. Morgan Chase to address the paltry levels of diversity in Wall Street firms. With funding from Chase, Harper said they coordinated internships for 125 undergraduate students of color, with an 86% job offer rate for those students at Wall Street firms post graduation.
“We will entertain any partner that provides an opportunity to get the talent pool exposed to you,” Harper said about working with FSI member firms.
But the challenge remains wide, according to data from the FSI/Broadridge report, in which the company asked 4,000 advisors and employees from member firms and received nearly 500 replies at an approximately 1% response rate. Overall, respondents were 82% male and 18% female. Ninety three percent of respondents reported as White, compared with 2% Hispanic, 2% African American and 4% Asian American.
