Less talk, more action!

In this episode of Accessible Finance by Project Nemo, we have a truly inspiring guest, Nadia Edwards-Dashti, a prominent advocate in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Nadia is known for her impactful work through her podcast series, ‘Fintech’s DEI Discussions,’ and her book, ‘FinTech Women Walk the Talk.’ With a strong focus on actionable change, she’s created several influential DEI programmes, including HSRAE-Success Is Inclusion and STEPFORWARD. Nadia’s dedication to promoting workplace inclusion and supporting future technologists has earned her recognition as one of Innovate Finance’s Women of FinTech Powerlist and multiple industry awards. We delve into her personal journey and explore her insights on improving disability inclusion in the workplace.

Transcript

Prerna Goel

Welcome to another episode of Accessible Finance by Project Nemo. I'm Prerna. And joining me is one of the founders of Project Nemo. Kris Foster as my co-host. And today we have a truly inspiring guest, Nadia Edwards- Dashti, a prominent advocate in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion. Nadia is known for her impactful work through her podcast series, The Fintechs Dei Discussions and her book Fintech Women Walk the Talk, with a strong focus on actionable change.

She's created several influential Dei programs, including HSRAE-Success Is Inclusion and Step Forward. Nadia's dedication to promoting workplace inclusion and supporting future technologists has earned her recognition as one of Innovate Finance's Women of Fintech, novelist and multiple industry awards. We are excited to delve into her personal journey and explore her insights on improving disability inclusion in the workplace. Thank you so much for joining us, Nadia.

Nadia Edwards-Dashti

Thank you for having me. And what a lovely introduction. I really appreciate it. And I think what you're doing with Project Nemo is so needed, and I know that there's a lot of positivity around the work that you're doing, and what I really hope these podcasts will do will turn that positivity into real action so that companies can start changing.

Prerna

So let's dive right in. Why don't we start with a little bit about you, about your professional and personal journey, and specifically, some insights around what makes people leave work and how have you gotten to this incredible topic of Dei and more recently, disability inclusion?

Nadia

Yeah. And I really like how you open that question of what makes people leave work, because I actually think that that is a the true specialism and the visibility that is so unique that I have across the industry. So to be specific, I've spent since 2005, I've worked in recruitment in the financial services industry, always placing technologists.

Our business now covers technology and sales. But you know, if you want to look at my 20 years, I call it the sort of pointy end of the world where it comes to, you know, a certain demographic has really succeeded in technology and fintech. Many other demographics have not. And I fell into that in 2005 and, you know, you know, when people say, it's not personal, it's business.

That is a phrase that was said to me many times in 2005 when I first started in recruitment, and I just couldn't understand that phrase, and I couldn't, I couldn't accept that, that what I was doing wasn't personal, like it had to be. If it's my business, then of course it's going to be personal because I care about everything I do.

And I think I've taken that into into how I've learned how to recruit, how I've learned how to manage recruiters, how I've learned how to build my own confidence is a minority in the room with my colleagues and minority in the room, which, with my clients in minority in the industry, being able to say, wow, like, no wonder I had a different opinion, like I wasn't crazy.

And thank you, Serena Williams, for the you're not crazy. Video that she did with Nike. Like that was a huge moment for me to sit back and go, wow, I'm not crazy. And it's okay that people have called me crazy, actually, but I no wonder I felt this way in my career. And I think, you know, my journey has been a personal one of like awakening, understanding.

And learning. And what I've really learned is who gets hired, who gets fired, who gets promoted, who gets backed, who gets put forward, who gets excused, who gets given grace, who gets given a chance. And all of these things I think are so interesting because one thing I always say, in my 20 years worth of recruiting, I have never been anyone's exit interview.

I've always been a confidential person. They've been talking to. So I hear all the horror stories of what really happened behind closed doors. That amazing company that won the Inclusion award. You know, they didn't do this or they didn't do that. And it's been really interesting because if we roll back to 2005, when I first started on this journey, you know, I, I actually I come from an incredibly privileged background in terms of my view of the world.

I come from a mixed heritage background. I know it sounds like it's not connected, but I'll always try new food because there's always been.

And, you know, some people understand what I mean when I say that and others won't. And for those that don't, if you if you are brought up in a family where these are your baselines, then I think that I believe that is a privilege because it means that you're not you're not going to be afraid of new ideas, of trying new things, of that difference of opinion in the room, in the workplace.

That's not going to make you clam up, that's going to interest you, that's going to intrigue you. So these were sort of my privileges. The school that I went to as a state school. So we had hundreds of different ethnicities and religions and backgrounds. I think my eyes were really opened when, and I wrote this in my book, 2005, I'm coming up the escalators every day at Bank station 730 in the morning, and I'm looking around and I'm like, wow.

Like where or where.

Like like my whole world what I had been used to what my baseline was. I've only given a couple of examples there. I've been exposed to different religions my whole life. I've been exposed to different ages. People now talk about social mobility. This was just my friends and family.

You know, that was my baseline. So to come to and the square mile of of such privilege, it set me on a path, a path. It's very interesting. I've never spoken about it like this before. And thank you for giving me the space to. But that should give you a bit of an idea of why I've committed the past 20 years to building my confidence and knowledge in the space of recruitment and investing in people in this industry to be able to advocate for fairness.

That's that is that's all I'm doing, because I was so starkly surprised that that, for, one of the very earliest times in my life, I'm looking around and thinking, wow, I'm really on my own here. Like people don't understand me. They don't get me. And what that does to confidence is incredible as well. Always feeling the other.

And I've really put that into my work. And so when people say as a business or as a personal like, of course it's personal, because that's my view. That was always my view on recruitment. It wasn't just put a CV forward and hope that person gets the job. I would question why. Why did you how did the the five CVS that we did put forward, how come you chose him?

What was it or what wasn't it from the people and my journey as I grew more experienced and and actually it was building of evidence. This wasn't a fearless what I first saw in 2005. By 2010, I had five years worth of evidence in my mind of, wow, this demographic didn't get chosen. This demographic. If they did get the job, why are they still in that job?

And they weren't given the promotion, they weren't given the pay rise. They weren't, you know, and it wasn't it wasn't until 2010, I'd say that I really gained my confidence awakening to say, wow, who is going to do something about this? Because, like, I couldn't see it and I was at, an amazing event, with the 30% club.

And that was an organization at the time, it was dedicated to getting, women, in boards in the UK, representing at least 30%. Now, I'm sure the names changed because, you know, we have moved forward a bit there, but I remember being there and looking round and thinking, wow, who am I waiting for?

Like I am now? You know, in 2010, I was one of the first four people, one of the co-founders of Harrington Star, fintech and financial services focused recruitment agency. I was the only woman. I was the only person of any my minority, ethnic minority backgrounds. 

I realized this is down to me, and I need to be more active. And I have dedicated, my entire journey to understanding, asking everybody, what was your experience? Why did you leave? And a lot of it boils down to these three things. People have paid unfairly. People have recognized unfairly, and people are promoted unfairly.

So when people talk to me about recruitment, I think everyone's doing a disservice when they think that's just about a CV being put forward. The tiniest part of recruitment. Good recruitment is about building workplaces that are inclusive. A lot of my work is the diversity piece of showing the diversity that's out there, so that companies can make better decisions to build diversity into their company, but that all falls to the ground if the company then doesn't focus on how do we look after people?

Certainly I could go on and on and on, but I think that's a good intro to who I am. What I learned now, Nadia.

Kris Foster

Firstly, I want to say thank you for joining us. It's, an absolute privilege to have you. And this is a little bit personal to me, if I'm to be frank with you. One of the reasons why I so desperately wanted to be one of the co-hosts there today was to initially give you your flowers. The incredible work that you do.

And I'm so inspired by you in so many different ways. And you're the one that gave me the opportunity when I first started working within this industry, I was absolutely petrified. And your kindness towards myself really just opened me up to be the man that I am today with working within this industry. So firstly, I want to give you your flowers to say thank you.

It means a lot to me. It gets me very emotional.

Nadia

When I don't get me going.

Kris

But speaking about the fact of being a little emotional, is I want to even delve a little bit into your personal life. I know that you're on a journey at the moment, and giving Project Nemo the opportunity to really share some of your story. I think it's really important that it comes from a safe space.

And I know Project Nemo is that safe space. If it's okay with you, could you just share a little bit about your journey and where you are now within your hearing?

Nadia

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for asking. So, yeah, I've, I've never if I explain this incorrectly, please, I apologize. But I've never spoken out loud about the journey, that I've been going on, 21 part for my house. It's really had to say. And you, Kris, has been very, very helpful. But I think it is important to share, because it does raise the question of why is it that it's the marginalized that drive the change, you know, so I spoke earlier about the work I've done for gender equality, in the industry.

And yeah, that came from me being so acutely aware of women being overlooked in the workplace or ethnic minorities being overlooked in the workplace. I have, over the past eight years been, officially. I'm sure it's been going on much longer than that. Been, my hearing has been declining. And I say officially over the last eight years because you could talk to anybody in my workplace, from over eight years ago.

And it was funny, you know, and that's, that's the absolute truth that it was noticed that I misheard things. But it was funny in how I misheard things going off on tangents when that, you know, the quite that wasn't the question that was asked me. And, and it was really, you know, my husband who said to me eight years ago, you do realize that if you don't watch movies, if they don't have subtitles, if I'm not facing you, you can't hear me.

If you're not facing me, I can't hear you can't hear, hear what's going on? And he encouraged me to investigate what's been happening. And over the past eight years, there has been, quite scary decline. And in my hearing to the point now that, I have severe hearing loss in, in both ears and I'm still under investigation of, you know, why is that?

But the reality is, I'm not going to be told no one's going to know whether I'm going to lose my hearing altogether. If, you know, if it keeps declining at this rate, you know, how many years do I have or will it just stop at this? We don't know just yet. But the whole experience has opened my eyes, to that other thing that I spoke about earlier that I touched upon othering in a very, very different, different way.

A whole another 12 layers down, I'd say, you know, and I'm talking about my hearing loss, in which a lot of people wouldn't realize because I wear incredible hearing aids. You know, and, and I think a lot of people, like, now, I have to say, when I go into a room, I have to say, please, can you face me?

Because we're at that point now, it would be, you know, it would be impossible not to, but, I think in the past, people have not realized. And it's so it's almost like an invisible, disability. But the layers down of feeling as it is, is, alone. It's, not knowing how to talk about it.

It's not knowing what to expect, what could happen next. It's, you know, even a doctor saying to you, don't worry. I think you'll you'll I think you'll always be able to hear your kids in some way, shape or form and even that talk to not realizing that. Wow. Like, please don't say that. I'm not that like because now I'm, I'm thinking, you know what happens when my kids are 14, 15 and they want to tell me something important and, you know, I can't hear them.

You know, it's, I've always felt I had to over don't do more to be at the same level. And now I'm, I'm doing I've got, you know, I don't know how many I'm seeing behind my back. And now I, you know, I, I can't, can't hear clearly. So I need people to help me out to be able to do that.

And you know what? Society's just not set up for it. And I know you know this, Chris. Of course. And I always say to myself, like, I, I can still continue and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm good, but there's so, so many other disabilities that that make life so, so difficult for people. But yeah, this is, it's very, very Eye-Opening to how difficult it is for people to learn, to help, to and I don't think it's necessarily attached to desire.

I think people do want to, I don't know how to. And it's a new habit for them.

Kris

I've always seen vulnerable ability is one of the greatest strengths, and I think that's what you are showcasing here right now. You know, with hidden disabilities. A lot of, you know, people don't necessarily understand hidden disability if it's not in a physical sense. It's sort of like, well, everything is okay, fine. But with hidden disabilities, it's extremely difficult.

And I've been on that on my own journey with hidden disabilities, really with friends. You know, someone who has a physical disability, as well as who, who's also autistic. I, I myself have been on a journey and seeing that firsthand with friends who've got cerebral palsy or from M.S. and you know, you know, wasn't born with it.

Right? It's it's been developed over time. And I think this is something that's really, really important is because that it just shows you and it can happen to anybody, right at any given moment, at any given time. And that could be from a client standpoint or a family member or, you know, or someone that you know from your local shop right at any moment that these things can happen.

So firstly, I want to say thank you for sharing that, because I know, I know, it's difficult and I know that you're on a journey, but I also know that you have the right people around you that do support you, that even in your lonely moments, that you're not alone. So first hand I'm here, you know, and that's and I really mean that.

And, you know, I have a wealth of friends that can that that thing that can hold your hand on this journey as well, you know. But so I just want to say thank you for.

Nadia

Sharing and thank you, Kris, because, you know, you you've been amazing, in having conversations with me. And we've spoken a lot about allyship and what that really means. And I think in this industry, there's so many people who would like to be called allies. But you've really, you know, helped me understand, you know, what your allies are and that isn't, you know, great big performative things.

It's the it's the every day, you know, and actually, there are so many incredible allies. Because on the one hand, I think there's a lot of people that love to who are aware that love to tell me it's okay. And I'm and I'm sort of looking at them, listening to them and I'm thinking, wow, like you're telling me about my experience and my fears, and you're telling me that I'm alright.

And, you know, because they know that they're grandparent. All that parent had difficulty hearing and, you know, and it's like, okay, thank you. But are they on stage at money 2020 worrying what questions are about to come across an audience that doesn't have a, microphone in the room? Or every time, you know, I I've spoken on stages this year accounts that the other day 32 times this year, which I'm so proud of myself for doing.

So every time I'm worried that I'm going to get reverberation through my hearing aids to the mic, that, you know, or, you know, if I'm out in the country, I will always take another set of hearing aids with me. I'll have batteries on me everywhere I go in case suddenly one goes, if it rains, I'm afraid because these are not waterproof.

I wouldn't be able to function without them. And the good allies. I cannot tell you how many are out there like last. Last week I spoke to students from organization called Work in Fintech, and I was, speaking to them next to an amazing gentleman called, Anthony Chung. And I said to him, when questions come in, I'm just going to look at you to repeat what the question is to me.

And he was incredible. Like, he completely looked after me through a in a way that no one would have known. I knew. And there are so many people that I think you can choose to do that. And this is what inclusion is about, whether we're talking about gender, age, whatever we're talking about disability, disabilities, you can see disabilities you can't see.

It's about supporting that person next to you. And there's a lot in here I've spoken about that society focused, but, you know, this is society focused in our small bubble of fintech. Right. And you know, it really does make me excited at the potential we have in fintech, because I read this morning on LinkedIn, in the past five years, more change in payments has happened than in the past 50 years, right?

So imagine if we can do that in the next five months. So disability inclusion, all forms of inclusion of us just being able to treat each other better in the workplace, listen to each other better, hear each other rather than tell each other what to do, listen and learn from one another. That's why at the end of my parts, I always say, let's listen.

Let's learn, let's walk the talk. Because that's what I think we're missing as an industry that we still have this problem of the opinion of the highest paid person in the room. Amazing guy called Ritesh Jain taught me this, acronym. I think it's called HIPAA. Highest paid person in the room's opinion. Right? We still listen to the HIPAA.

When? Why don't we? Why aren't we super excited to hear everybody's to positive debate, you know, rather than a so or just diverting to that person. You know and I think that's our problem. That's our baseline problem because we haven't actually fallen in love with innovation in a way that is truly creative. That's why we can't get inclusion right.

Because it's okay to be innovative if it's in my world of safety, you know, in the privileged world of safety. And and I think that actually it's super exciting to see where we can go with fintech. Should we really open this conversation up and turn it into action for including everybody you know?

Kris

Absolutely.

Prerna

Your experience highlights the fact and we know this. We've talked about it in our previous podcast sets and we use that as one of the statistics is, something like 87% of people are not born with their disability. They acquire disability, which means,as you have experienced, any one of us can acquire disability at any point in time.

Why do you think? When we look at the Dei agendas, disability is missing? Do people actually have intent to include it and they are not able to convert it into action? Or is that an issue with intent itself? What's been your experience?

Nadia

And my worry is the issue around real intent. Because unfortunately, we still have so many companies that want to equate it to ROI now, right? Return on investment now. And actually, let's just just take that for a second. And I know there's a lot of debate in inclusion communities around this, but my personal perspective is, is, yeah, you get it, get much better.

Like, if we just take out people, we take out justice, we take out empathy, we take out fairness, which obviously are all things I'm driven by. But you take that way for a second and just think, you are running a fintech company and you want to have all the people in the world possible to sell your product to, or to work with or to connect to it.

Why would you cut out huge volumes of people? Why would you exclude them? To me, like that doesn't make any sense right now. Let's bring in everything else I just spoke about the justice, the people, the fairness, right? The perspectives. Actually, as I go around on this journey, I'm always going to come back to it's going to make your business stronger.

And like with all of this, you know, like a, of course is going to make your business stronger. It's going to make society stronger and better and, you know, the really interesting thing, you know, if I go back to when I wrote my book, fintech women, not at all. I, I, one of my chapters was focused on the inclusion success connection.

And I spoke about this that, you know, without different perspectives, you hold yourself back without having debate. You hold yourself back without thinking about different people's experiences. You hold yourself back. And I think really, if you were to sit down and speak to 200 CEOs right now, they would all say, I agree with you. Absolutely.

We need to be better, better than this. But yet again, we don't have the right people in the room to even derive this. And I think that's the problem. So, a very well known social media site that we all use day to day, everyone will recognize, has recently put in a verification button. And, we spoke earlier, my married name is different to my career working name.

And that means that my passport, my credit cards, everything is my married name, which I don't use on, oh.

My birthday, which I don't use on that site. And it meant that I couldn't be verified. I have now been verified. And of course, there were loads of, you know, publications saying you'll be 60% more engagement if you get verified. And, I was really annoyed about this because to me, it meant that in the room that decided on this verification button, there was not one person that had changed their name in their life.

So not a trans person, not, a woman who had been married, not anybody else who'd needed to change their name. At some point, that ring had a gap. And that gap has led to, I don't know how many people signing off this process, and they just weren't aware of what they were missing. Now, think about all the instances out there with pay like pay, just take payment products just to begin with.

And we think about, you know, actually what what Mastercard has done with the with the cards all feeling different. So for for people who are visually impaired, they can they can feel the difference. Right. That like when you when you first hear that, you think, of course, why aren't we all doing that? And I think that that is where we really do have the gap, because it will make sense when you talk about it, but who's actually putting the time, effort and the money into it?

And I think this is where we see the gap extends that inclusion, success, connection. And it's very easy for that to be put on the back burner because we are asking for people to change, and change is scary and change outside your parameters of comfort people are struggling with. We still have not sorted at all the gender inequality issue.

We still haven't sorted any anywhere near one race. We're nowhere near on disability inclusion. But work like this is raising awareness and that is something I totally believe in. First step is awareness. Yeah, second step is, is conversations where people aren't afraid to have those conversations. What we've learned from, the battle for gender equality is there's a lot of, misconceptions around what words really mean.

So, you know, allyship, you know, even, you know, performative, like a lot of people don't really understand, like, what that means. When you, talk about a positive discrimination like that, that phrase is just bandied around, and, you know, people don't really understand what it means. But I tell you what it will do that will act as a complete stop to any inclusion conversation.

You know, there's a lot that we need to do. But also, I think the threat of inclusion. I am very passionate about us fixing this. Inclusion isn't a threat. And anyone who does feel threatened, we've got to make you feel safe that we can talk about that threat and that it's not about taking anything. Yes, it is about change, but it's not about taking anything away from you.

It's about you being able to gain more from other people, other people being able to gain more from you. But what we can't do, I don't believe, is get aggressive and cancel people unless and unfortunately, with all the work that we've been doing, there is this huge cancel culture that we have. And if right now in fintech, the majority of the people in power and privilege, if they do feel threatened, we're not going to make any change happen.

So we've got to make sure that we're not excluding with inclusion and including with inclusion. And that, I think is a huge part of the the route that I've gone, down with all of this.

00:29:25:08 - 00:29:43:23

Prerna

What you are saying is you are working on creating safe space for those who are currently excluded, but you can't do that by making it unsafe. For those who currently feel included. It has to work on both ends. 

Kris

I was remembering a time, just now when you were speaking and I being, you know, being autistic, like, I get a first class, and it's not on the basis of me wanting to go look at me. I'm sitting in first class. It gives me that space.

Right? What I need. And, it was last year, as I was sitting on my seat minding my own business, a lady and gentleman come on the train, and they were like, excuse me. I think you're sitting in the wrong seat. And I laughed and I was like, sorry. I go, yeah, I think you're sitting in the wrong see, no, no, no, I'm not.

I'm really, really not. Well, they really got that upon themselves that they thinking, you know. No, I think you are. They maybe see your ticket. And I was like, well really? And like. Yeah. I said, well, I'll tell you what, if you show me yours, I'll show you mine. And you know that I think they've got their back up a little bit.

Right? But rather than me getting angry about it, I try to make a little bit of a joke about it, but then come alongside the individual. Yeah. We both showed our tickets. But within that conversation, you know that briefly, they got a little bit of understanding. And I think you're so, so right is we have to come alongside people rather than actually being so aggressive and saying, you know, at this, this stage that this needs to happen and that needs to happen, this we need to think about it when in reality that we're all on a journey.

I said earlier on, about my my own understanding of my own, looking at things over this last, two years of my own biases within working in this space on the Ida. Such a huge bias, thinking, well, they're never gonna accept me. They're never gonna, you know, see that value in me, right?

But how wrong was I? You know, the love and the support, as you clearly know, that I've been shown really changed my mindset.gave me the opportunity to start seeing people for who they are and then actually look at my own bias. And then it was like, well, you know what, Chris? You've got that wrong.

Now, I've got the ability now to to put that right. And I think it's just you. So it's so true. And what you, what you were saying. But that kind of gets me onto this next question. What can you know, companies do to be, you know, in recruitment aspect of hiring more people with disabilities? I mean, you've been doing this, you know, clearly for over 20 years.

What do you think the companies can do?

Nadia

Yeah, I'm going to give a couple of action points that the, the, the tasks that will allow for better visibility. But I'm also going to caveat what I'm going to say as well. So I think for any, any type of inclusion and we're talking today about disability inclusion, it's got to start with visibility. So a lot of the work that I do around, gender equality is making sure that that phrase and this is what's used all the time when it comes to women in tech, the phrases out of love to the height of women.

Yeah, but, there's just there's just none of them out there, you know, and then you just chat and you just hear, like, steam coming out my ears. And I'm just try that, you know? And a lot of my work is, is around that and, and, what I've actually learned is even when I have given visibility, even when there are gender balanced talent pools and doesn't change the decision making unless you get to the absolute root.

So I will always say visibility is huge. Let's demystify this.They don't exist is the first one. They don't want this job. Well, at the moment, I tell you what, anybody in the disabled community do, they feel welcome right now in fintech project name. Oh thank you. Like I actually think that that's a huge step forward.

But that's a question that businesses should be asking themselves from a branding point of view, from an EVP employee value proposition point of view. Right. And then, you know, it's like pulling on a thread because actually, if as a CEO of a business, if you say, wow, how attractive do we look as a business? And that's a very different way of thinking when you're thinking about recruitment, because, you know, for so many years, businesses just didn't think like that.

It was find me someone good enough. Whereas I think the world of work has changed. Now it's about how attractive does this business look? And when you start asking that question, it then moves on from how attractive to how possible, like, would I be able to hear in rooms that have, you know, loads of, air conditioning on really loud, you know, has anyone thought that ever in my building?

No. I think there are, there are most buildings now will have, wheelchair access. They'll have ramps, they'll have things like that. But one of the biggest things I've learned in gender equality is you can't just say to yourself, well, a wheelchair can get in. That's the disabled access to tech. I'm done. I've sorted out my my disability inclusion lot and that is what unfortunately happens.

Companies say, well, I've done the bit that I need to, I'm good. And it's much more complex than that. It's the visibility, it's the accessibility. It's the making sure that the brand is then making sure that the people in the business are ready to include. It goes all the way back to what I first said, and this is the bit I want to caveat everything with.

There's no point having an amazing disabled access or putting a hearing loop in for, you know, people like me this. There's just no point if everyone in your business is not of any understanding of what they need to do or they're not. They're not even thinking that this is an important new perspective we need in the room. Again, one of the things I've learned about gender equality or inequality is where it's gone wrong is, too, too many women were hired into businesses where the rest of the team looked at them and said, she only got that job because she's a woman, but who would want to stay in that environment?

They're already marginalized. They're already a minority, and now everyone thinks that they just got the job because they ticked a box from this. Exact same thing will happen if we don't get this right for disability inclusion. And what we didn't get right was that all of those individuals that ever looked at that woman and said that she was underqualified, they a I mean, what sort of confidence and privilege do you have in yourself if you suddenly think that you are privy to what we need to the entire business, number one.

But, you know, number two, it means they're not looking at all the skills, all the value, and then nowhere near thinking about the the different ideas, the different perspectives, the fact that we are we are weaker without these perspectives. And just to finish my point on this, I think the cybersecurity community, there's a lot of work to do there, like within the fintech space.

But I really like the way that they talk about inclusion, because they talk about it like a cyber security threat, you know, and they're like, you're going to be in big trouble without this perspective. If you're not understanding how someone can, they do it from, you know, the risk assessment point of view and threat intelligence. But you know, that perspective on what you are missing.

I really like that. And I think that that needs to be thought about more. So it's not just I'll go to recruiting agencies that can give you the visibility. It's way more than that. It's can you truly include not just hire include help those individuals thrive. Offer them fair pay, fair promotion, fair recognition because one thing I always say when we talk about this from a gender perspective is no man ever said, oh, I better not put him forward because they'll think that I'm only putting forward a man, whereas women think that all the time that disabled people will think that they oh, can I, can I refer oh you know.

Yes. Yes she can. Yes. We should always. We've got to increase that visibility.

Prerna

Well wow. So many thoughts going through my head because a number of things you said I have experienced them. I'm at the intersectionality of a lot of different forms of discrimination and this concept of tokenism. And your are internalizing it, right. Because you think that that's why you're getting the opportunities and then it starts opening up all kinds of things that are an imposter syndrome.

And it's just a mind game that nobody can win. One thing you said, now and you said it earlier as well, which is recruitment obviously is a very small part of the puzzle. Right. What it really boils down to is, is your organization truly inclusive? Is it in the DNA of the organization? Do they actually think as an inclusive organization, or do they think of it as an organization that's trying to do inclusion or check the box of inclusion?

So have you seen any examples of organizations going on this journey and moving from being not really inclusive, I don't know how you change the DNA of the organization. You can get your recruitment right, you can get some of the policies right. But how do you fundamentally change the very mindset and culture of the organization to become inclusive?

Nadia

So I can definitely give you some examples, but that was one, that my mind went to straightaway. And it's so interesting because actually I hark back to probably 2013. So like this is, you know, over ten years ago now, and it was, a small merchant bank and the, the new CIO approached me and said, we've got to sort this out.

This is absolutely I'm not I'm not having it. And he was so direct. And, you know, there was there's absolutely no fluff around it. I don't care about positive discrimination. I don't care about this any other. We are not going to be able to move forward without these perspectives. I need these roles and I need them done like this.

I need visibility like this. And I need these sorts of communication characteristics. I need empathy like he spoke about. He spoke about character mistakes as if they were, you know, I need ten years of Python development experience, which I think was so eye opening at the time because, you know, now we talk a lot about hard skills and soft skills.

And by the way, the soft skills, I actually think they're the harder skills, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I'm absolutely fascinated by characteristics that, are really, needed in this industry. But he made a decision and he executed on a plan, and he gave no wiggle room to the whole of the business. He said, I want this debate.

And if you are agreeing with me, you're not doing your job. And but he put himself out there, you know, and a lot of them that that a lot of people that we ended up placing. Of course, you know, I'm still in touch with many of them now. And well, like it was a program of action that went in from the top and it then permeated the whole way down.

You get involved with diversity of thought or this business isn't good for you anymore. It was just, you know, and I think at the time when it was happening, I didn't realize how amazing it was. I now look back at it and it's still one of my favorite examples to use. Right. But then you have other businesses.

So I think the fintechs that have just done incredibly are the ones that you have somebody who who has been marginalized in their lifetime, who ended up being the founder or one of the the first, first few people, coming into the organization, that brings a whole different perspective. And, and a way of hiring and a way of building the team.

It brings a priority to as we build the base and the foundation of this company, we must have diversity of thought. So that's a really, really great way. And then you find these businesses years and years later like that's just permeated the whole way through. But then there are so many businesses who come to me and they'll say that our board is all one demographic.

We are looking to get some nets in because we need to be challenged. We need that. But also, you know, our whole, whole culture is a certain way. These are the companies that some of them have been really successful when it's been we're going to do training, we're going to do follow up, we're going to do luncheon and we're going to do online webinars.

This is going to be a program that isn't just a 12 week gig, something that this is who we are as a business. And what I found really interesting and the companies that have stuck with that, despite the recent 18 month, two year downturn and money, money on hold and fintech and the companies that have stuck with it have been able to really promote great successes within that culture.

They're still having individuals progress. They're still talking about being agile in their business, pivoting. A lot of the businesses, you just let all that go and have said, I'm sorry, inclusion is isn't a priority for us right now. We've got to be profitable. This is something that I hear all the time and what you end up seeing with those types of companies is a lot of it is just bad business as usual.

And where is the the reactivity to the to the marketplace? Look, I'm not in those businesses. I'm not privy to everything. But what I am privy to are individuals who are deciding to leave those types of businesses and who feel let down. And I think that this is something that cannot be underestimated. In the past 18 months, we've had a reduction of budgets, a reduction of funding.

There's been far less growth than we've ever seen in all these fintechs been around that there hasn't been growth. Right? It's been if anyone if anyone leaves the company, maybe they'll be replaced. Maybe I'm but it hasn't been the 2021 and 2022 days of growth, growth, growth, which I think has changed the sentiment in the industry of care to individuals, and care for staff.

So a question I asked companies and I think it's really related to how committed are you right, in 2021, if I had said to you, 10% of your staff are about to leave tomorrow, how would you feel? And all the business leaders would you hand held on the table and go, oh my gosh, how would we like, what would we do?

How do we replace them? Because we were in talent shortage. Well, I mean now we're in unemployment. Well, so if I said to anybody you're about to lose 10% of your staff tomorrow, what would replace them that sentiment is a killer for inclusion, wellbeing, engage employee engagement, encouraging people to thrive. And I my belief is as we move into 2025, the market is going to shift.

It's not going to shift hugely, but it will shift slightly. And I think just by the way, the market will shift companies who had the intention but dropped their actions, I think they'll be forced to bring their actions back because there's there will be and I know there is a lot of unhappy staff who feel betrayed by their businesses, who don't understand why their Dei committees lost their lost their budgets and funding and and their support.

And I think that's the important thing. My last point on this is a woman I spoke to a while ago. She said two years ago, I was encouraged to be the head of the South Asian women's community. I was told, what work? Wherever you want. Yes, definitely. You should get yourself a dog. All of this. This is what her boss was saying to her.

And then, you know, it was two weeks before we spoke. We only spoke recently. She just had a mass male across the whole of the business saying, anyone who wasn't in the office three days next week, you'll be disciplined. And she was like, what has happened? You know, and I think this lack of care for staff, is a is such a it's such a sad time because and this is in every company but this is happening, you know, and this obsession with must be in the office, must be face to face to be productive.

We've got to be better than that. And it goes back to what I said about payments. If payments can have more change in the last five years than last 50, imagine what we can do with inclusion if everyone's behind it.

Prerna

And I actually think we can go on for hours. Yeah we can. Yeah. We got talking about this. I actually want to take this opportunity to thank both of you because, you know, you typically don't co-host this with me. This was amazing to have you for you to be able to share your perspective along with Nadia.

I mean, so many amazing insights in there. So thank you once again for one, being vulnerable and sharing a personal story. it's inspiring. I know, one of the things that have learned, especially being involved with Project Nemo is we shouldn't make superhero out of people with disability. Having said that, I think to be able to share the story in a forum like this is very courageous.

So thank you for that. And thank you for being very transparent about what it really takes to convert intent into action, because we can sit here and talk about it, but unless it drives action, none of this is worth it. So thank you Kris, and thank you. Nadia, thank.

Nadia

You for having.

Kris

Me. Thank you. Honestly really appreciate it. And just I'm just so looking forward to to your next chapter as well.

Prerna

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