The below transcript is from an September 2011 interview with Romy Riddick: SVP, Head of Talent Management & Diversity Leader, TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank.  Interviewees for the series Diversity and Inclusion: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow were asked for their personal opinions and not those reflective of their current or past employer.  The views expressed are not necessarily those of any employer or this website.

Quick Question Links:
Personal History – CDO Role – D&I Origins – D&I Business Reason – Learning Tools – Workforce Application – Dimensions of Difference – Redo? – No Need for CDO Role – Most Advanced Country – Future Prediction

Dagoba Group: Give us a brief overview of your history within the D&I space.

My career has been spent in the D&I space because I believe in the benefits of diversity. I am currently the head of talent management and diversity for TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank. My responsibilities include the full cycle of talent management including recruitment strategy, organizational and leadership development, succession planning, performance and change management, and diversity & inclusion. I manage a team of talent management professionals who work in partnership with business leaders, HR relationship managers and HR management teams across the organization to assess and provide solutions that meet business objectives and organizational needs. At TD, we combine this range of responsibilities to meaningfully and purposefully apply a diversity lens and philosophy across these functional areas.

I joined TD in 2009 as Vice President, Diversity Leader and led the strategic planning and implementation of the diversity and inclusion effort for TD’s U.S. operations achieving effective diversity management and shepherding organizational savvy on the business benefits of inclusion. In that role I focused on the recruitment, retention and advancement of traditionally underrepresented groups and led the organization in rolling out diversity leadership and management training.

My diversity and inclusion work spans public and private sectors. I began my career as a legislative aide in state government where I was responsible for researching and positioning testimony aimed at benefiting women and children for the Maryland State Women’s Caucus.

The majority of my career was spent at PricewaterhouseCoopers where I had responsibility for national diversity recruitment and retention strategies aimed and women and minorities. And, as a former trainer in organizational development for Merrill Lynch, I delivered diversity training to management in the Private Client business.

I also serve as a Commissioner of the Women’s Refugee Commission, WRC, a non-profit advocating for laws, policies and programs to improve the lives and protect the rights of refugee women and children, bringing about lasting, measurable change. I am a member of the Salute Steering Committee for YWCA of the City of New York, which oversees the annual Academy of Women Achievers event hosted by YWCA, and I have served on the Women’s Multicultural Conference Planning Committee for Working Mother Media.

Dagoba Group: When you look at a diversity officer in the corporate space, what do you believe should be the overall responsibilities?

There are a few core responsibilities that diversity officers typically have in a corporate organization. The first is the creation and buy-in of the business case. This is critical because it is where discussion begins. The diversity officer really is the catalyst or agitator for the leadership of the organization to start to think about diversity from a business perspective. The second responsibility is the creation of the actual diversity strategy. I am a big believer in creating an approach to diversity similar to the way we would approach any other business objective or strategy. While there is much embedded in diversity that feels intangible, we need to have specific solid and measurable plans in place. The third piece would be the execution and measurement of the plan including organizational awareness, obtaining resources, working with management, and overseeing a diversity team that rolls up its sleeves to partner with business leaders to do the work.

Last but not least, the diversity officer can serve in a vital role as the shepherd for employee and customer experience when it comes to a culture of inclusion.

Dagoba Group: Often we hear corporate diversity initiatives originated in response to legal compliance. Within the financial services industry, do you believe this is true?

Absolutely, I find that to be true. If we go back to the 80s, we began to see an interest in diversity beyond affirmative action. At that time in our history there was a heightening focus on diversity due to the realities of organizations contending with law suits wrapped in discrimination or harassment charges. As a result, the financial services industry has become a leader in a more strategic diversity focus because these businesses realized beyond the legal compliance, there was some benefit to a true diversity strategy. It was much later that we began talking about the concepts of inclusion. So while legal compliance was most certainly a catalyst for this work, we’ve seen an evolution and a wider, more strategic view get applied over the years.

Dagoba Group: In your industry, what percent of D&I initiatives do you believe stem from the need to stay legally compliant today?

I would say a fairly small percentage which may seem counter intuitive to the increasing regulation and governmental interest in this work. The reason I say a fairly small percentage is that while organizations can reach legal compliance with relative ease and take the adherence seriously, I have found that the drivers of corporate interest in D&I now go beyond that baseline, and are weighted to the business benefits of diversity and inclusion from both an employee and customer standpoint. It is part of the evolution of the industry.

Dagoba Group: You believe it was the late 80’s D&I became more of a business reason (non-legal compliant) within the financial services industry world. Can you tell me why?

Well, I do think the legal aspects, particularly around gender discrimination and sexual harassment were the catalyst. If we think about the history of affirmative action and government involvement in this area in the 60s, we saw corporate doors open to more people in the following decades.

By the time the 80s came around, you had a number of people in the workforce filing cases because of their experiences. When these cases came to court, we started to see financial services institutions really start to see beyond the legal mire — that a diversity strategy could really benefit the business.

Dagoba Group: You spoke of how the financial services industry had a better understanding of the business case. Do you believe there is still a lot of work to be done on developing the business case behind D&I?

Of course! And there are a variety of industries in addition to financial services that have had commitments to this work for many years. Despite a great deal of work, we still find ourselves faced with the same challenges that existed decades ago. It is critically important, however, to acknowledge the significant strides that have been made. As a diversity practitioner, the quest is always to tie bottom line business results to D&I. The more we can demonstrate that direct link the more people will buy-in, champion and embed D&I efforts.

Dagoba Group: Believe you just answered my next question on what conversation have you found to be the most engaging for line managers.

I think one of the things we learned from doing this work is that D&I really needs to be presented and positioned as being tied to leadership capability. Having people understand that is critically important. In a globalized economy or in industries where you are acquiring other businesses and your footprint expands across various geographies, it creates the need for leaders who can lead diverse teams regardless of the demographics. You need leadership capability to manage across diversity and be effective. It has become common to not have a homogeneous team. If you are not capable of managing across diversity well, it will become even more challenging for you as we continue to see a shift in US demographics. It is a very important conversation to have with line managers because people fundamentally want to be good leaders.

Dagoba Group: We spoke about the conversation, but then there are the tools that convey that conversation. What tools have you found worked best in the past for educating the corporate world in D&I? Are they still effective today? What do you believe is the best method for development for today and tomorrow?

If we really had the answer to that, we might be further along. I still believe that there are huge benefits to classroom training on diversity & inclusion, although it becomes harder to do as organizations grow because of inefficiencies and expense. There is nothing like being in the midst of other people experiencing something on a deep level that helps solidify it in your mind. But the training experience must then be followed up with other experiences to practice and reinforce behaviors and challenge assumptions. This is when learning vs. training happens. I think creative and strong eLearning can also be a very strong component.

One of the things we have found very effective at TD and I am a big believer, is putting people in situations where they are actually in the minority. It is a big learning opportunity for many people that grew in industries where they have been in the majority. It is not to make people feel uncomfortable, but to give them the experience. I think that is really a strong learning opportunity for many people. Frankly, it is one of the philosophies for cycling people into the CDO role from business lines. Having the direct experience is far different from sitting on the sidelines.

Dagoba Group: For the financial services industry, within the workforce D&I area (recruiting, promotions, raises, team development, retention etc) which one do you believe is the most advanced? Which has the greatest need?

Recruiting is probably the most advanced. However, unless the culture is inclusive in these organizations we simply create revolving doors.

The greatest need today is around retention, development and advancement of people once you get them in your doors. Quite frankly, this is the harder piece of the work. It is really focused on building and sustaining relationships across differences. It is a competency and comfort zone many human beings don’t have and where we could make an impact.

Dagoba Group: There are many dimensions of differences within our workplace (e.g. gender, cultural, religious, age, ableness, sexual orientation, ethnicity etc). Within the financial services industry, what do you see as the most wide spread area of development? Where do you see it moving in the future?

Women in financial services have benefited the most and gained the most traction. I see that continuing to a certain extent. We have the benefit of the masses. We have more women graduating with college degrees than men generally speaking. Women are making the majority of household buying decisions. There is a certain space women are occupying in education and decision making that has resulted in much larger numbers in corporate organizations. The future will include continued and increased attention on women in senior positions. The questions about women truly being able to ascend to the top in significant numbers remains to be seen.

Dagoba Group: It is interesting that you see women make up more than half of the labor force and yet less than 14% are in executive officer positions for the F500. It is a very lopsided area still.

It is extremely lopsided and you can add into that there is still unequal pay issues in our society. The trend and traction for women will continue. We will see more women in senior ranks in time as we keep up this work.

Dagoba Group: If you were able to turn the clock back and redo a particular engagement or process on D&I (either one you have given or experienced), what would it be and why? How would you do it differently?

I would have really led with a true business case to demonstrate why diversity and creating an inclusive culture is a business benefit as opposed to what we did in the beginning in financial services that was lead with legislative compliance.

Dagoba Group: Some say it is the role of a D&I officer to work themselves out of a job by creating an inclusive workplace which will no longer need the D&I focus. Have you heard this before and how do you respond to this statement?

Yes, of course. I think most of us probably have. Although I believe in the concept that diversity should evolve to become a way of practice within our business so there is no need to have the CDO or diversity team in the middle. The truth is like any other business area the context and industry drivers change. In all reality, like all other functional areas that support people, it is likely we will need to stay firmly in place. Despite organizations becoming sophisticated around human resource functions, you still need an HR body. I think the role diversity practitioners play within organizations is still relevant. It is unlikely we will be working ourselves out of a job in the near future. You still need people who will execute and quite frankly agitate the system. I think that’s healthy.

Dagoba Group: Most of our conversation has focused on the US space. Which country have you found to be the most advanced in the corporate conversation D&I space? Why?

Let me give you a caveat here. Most of my work has been North American based. I am going to give you this from my context of experience. I would still say because of our laws and premise of our country, the US is probably further ahead than most other countries. I would marry that with Canada as well. North America has a robust and mature approach to thinking around diversity. It is the implementation and execution we have a problem with. I think the value system of our country is aligned with the concepts of diversity.

Dagoba Group: We have asked you to turn the clock back, but for this last question we are asking you to look ahead. Ten years from now, where do you believe we will be in the D&I conversation? Should be?

If you asked me about any other area of my life, I would tell you I wish I had a crystal ball. It is a tough question, but is really intriguing to think about.

Referencing reputable studies, we are not really where we thought we would be 20+ years into this work. To look ten year ahead, we need to get to a place where we have the ability to apply the concepts of inclusion across all areas of diversity. Conceptually we are still very far away from that. Many organizations have set priorities around their customer base or under-represented groups. I think people get stuck around diversity thinking about those particular demographics as opposed to taking concepts of inclusion and applying them across the board regardless of the demographics.

Ten years from now I would like to see us educate and evolve to thinking much more inclusively. We will then slowly but surely see results. There is really no silver bullet, but I think that applying the concepts across the board will be a huge help. I expect to see us there in ten years… I’ve always been an eternal optimist in this work.

Dagoba Group: Thank you for your time and insight. Great information. Our readers will benefit from your unique perspective on these topics.