Series Twelve, Episode Three: Financial and female inclusion in Latin America

Julia: Hello. My name is Julia Streets, and welcome to DiverCity Podcast, talking about equality, inclusion, and diversity in financial services. On the podcast, we seek to shine a light on positive progress, call out areas requiring further focus and offer lots of ideas to help drive change. Before we get started today, I just want to take a moment to thank our friends at CityAM for their continued support of DiverCity Podcast, publishing and promoting both our episodes and our supporting blog series, so their readers can stay on top of the very latest diversity and inclusion debate. Now, you may want to check out CityAM’s own podcast called The City View for all the latest news and opinion from the city, because we, at DiverCity Podcast, are huge fans.

Today, I’m delighted to be joined by Angela Hurtado and Juan Carlos Mora. Angela Hurtado is JP Morgan’s Managing Director, Senior Country Officer for Colombia responsible for the firm’s operations and clients contacts in the country across all its lines of business. She has greatly contributed to the establishment and the expansion of JP Morgan’s footprint in Colombia, both with local and international clients through the offering and the support of investment and hedging tools for the institutional and corporate sectors. Angela, it’s wonderful to have you on the show. Thanks for being with us.

Angela: Thank you, Julia, for the invitation. It’s an honour to be here today with you and Juan Carlos.

Julia: Our second guest is Juan Carlos Mora, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Bancolombia. Juan Carlos leads a financial group of some 30,000 employees and trusted with the mission to promote the sustainable economic development to achieve the wellness of everyone. During his 30 years career in Grupo Bancolombia, Juan Carlos has built a leadership pathway across all areas of the organisation and has played a key role in the group’s internationalisation, envisioning and executing a strategy to build a leading regional financial group across Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Juan Carlos, thank you for joining us.

Juan Carlos: Thank you, Julia. It’s an honour being here with you and with Angela, a banker that I admire very much. Having this conversation is just great. Thank you very much for having me.

Julia: Well, it’s going to be wonderful and there’s so much I’m really keen to get into. But first of all, I’m always keen to hear from my guests. What are you focused on right now? Angela, let me come to you first of all.

Angela:  I think that there is a lot of focus, but one of the main focus that I’m having right now is, I will call it connecting, connecting the corporate world with the civil social associations and government initiatives. I’m doing that through a nonprofit organisation that we created a couple of years ago called Woman in Connection that basically is bringing different types of initiatives through diversity. I will say one is consciousness. So basically, it’s very important, people, starting from myself, the process to understand and to learn from diversity has been a journey. So trying to bring that level of consciousness around the people is very important because we think that is the first step to generate empathy and to generate the change.

The second I will say is through education. We are very focused on generating from the beginning of our education, making sure that diversity is put in the right place. Open conversation, I think that when we are able to bring to the table conversations about diversity, it can generate a better connection between different companies, between different people, between different, I will call it, that is very common right now, stakeholders around our life. I think that’s inviting diversity in a very proactive and constructive way. I think that is something that I’m focused on. So I will just summarise and probably we are going to discuss further some of the points that I have mentioned, but I think that that is one of my main focus right now.

Julia: We certainly will because I am buzzing with questions. I have so many questions to explore. But before I do that, Juan, I’m very keen to hear from you as well. What are you focused on right now?

Juan Carlos: As you mentioned in the introduction, we are a regional bank in Latin America with presence in four countries, Colombia, our main market, Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala. We believe that banking, it’s key to promote inclusion in our society. What I mean is through access to financial services, we can promote that inclusion in many ways, inclusion to economic activity, which it’s key for us. So financial inclusion as a means to access better economic activities is one of our main focus now. We are doing that through technology, giving access through a very easy access to financial services to everybody. We are now focused on path coverage and the products for everybody.

From there, we move to promote, sustainability is also a key for us. That’s why we are working very hard on sustainability stories. It’s inclusion, sustainability, and how to develop or to help grow the economic activity that the economic and growth of our countries. Inclusion as a means to better society and to promote economic development as a way to find that wellbeing for everybody and doing that through technology to give an access. We are very much focused now on working to give access to credit for people that have been excluded, mainly women in our markets. Those are the headlines of what we are doing at the moment.

Julia: Wonderful. Thank you. I’ve got questions actually regarding ESG sustainability, definitely coming up a little bit later on in the show. One of the things I was thinking about as you were mentioning that was, of course, the intersection between both of your remarks is serving both in terms of providing financial services, but also connecting with them as well. One of the things I’d love to start with is a conversation about why diversity, equity and inclusion really matters at a board level, but also how do you drive down a priority focus, if you like the commercial imperative that we all know to be true? How do you drive that down through your middle management teams in your organisations? Juan, can I come to you first of all?

Juan Carlos: I became a CEO of Bancolombia six years ago. When I arrived, we had a board with seven members, men, all of them. So I said, “Hey, that’s not good.” So I started to move. Now, we have two women as members of our board. I can say how different is the dynamics are on the board when you have diversity. I saw that evolution of the board in which I started to having one woman as a part of the board and then two. Now, I have seven members, five men, two women, but the dynamics on the board, the conversation, how things evolve inside a board is really good and brings different views so that it’s not just about you. I experienced that myself on how the board evolves on that matters. From there, you mentioned the middle management and that’s another challenge.

In the case of Bancolombia, our demographics, we have 62% of our employees are women. So in that matter, we don’t have issues. But when I started to look deeper, at the end, it’s not just that number, 62 or 63, more than 50, it’s are women really having the same opportunities than men? And in financial services companies, that is not the case. Usually, financial services is a very masculine activity. We start talking about opportunities for women in Bancolombia. We are moving on the board and I told you about that, but senior management, we still have a way to go. I have several reports and just one is a woman. Now, we have targets. But at the end, you have to answer, why is that? Why are the opportunities not there for women to move from middle management to senior management and have the same participation as men? So we start having those conversations and start setting targets and start trying to identify what are those issues that are not allowing women to move from being part of the middle management to be part of senior management. We are on that journey.

Julia: It is interesting talking to very senior executives as we do on the podcast about the journey that we’re all on. I think it’s partly about recognising it. It is understanding the data and the reality, and then also putting some frameworks around it, which includes targets as well. Angela, can I bring you in here as well, as obviously a very senior woman in the industry, the whole point about taking diversity, equity and inclusion seriously at the board level, but also what recommendations would you bring, about how do you drive it down through the middle management layer?

Angela:  I think that I will say that one of the chapters that we have in Women in Connection, I will say that there are two chapters. One is corporate policies and the other one is women in a board of directors. In the one that is connected to the corporate policies, I think that our intention and our focus has been trying to bring the better corporate policies in terms of diversity and inclusion. Because as you mentioned, when you have a clear path for companies to go in the journey probably is going to be easier to set some targets and probably to follow and to recognise and to understand how flexibility. And then their other order ideas, their recommendations, or the challenges that have been sustained is that at the beginning, the diversity and inclusion was something that was a focus on HR teams or social responsibility teams, but it wasn’t included in the strategy of the companies.

I think that having Juan Carlos here and other leaders in Colombia, that from their role are making a commitment, it changed completely the strategy of a company, and that’s what I think is probably the biggest change that we’re seeing right now. If we are able to understand that diversity and inclusion is not just a chapter on the HR, but also is a way to connect with clients, with employees, with providers, with your communities, that’s where people really understand that diversity brings real change and impact for both companies and society. At the same time, we have recognised that there are some unintentional practises around recruiting and keeping the talent. There are also unintentional things that have happened around, I think it is not just necessarily, of course, in Colombia, around the maternity leave and how the cost of those maternities historically has impacted the implied costs to hire women.

Of course, there are a lot of sectors that are very linked to the physical strength that probably is not necessarily seen as something that is very rarely the women. So I think that there are different challenges. The succession plan is something that I have found a very strategic way to also generate change. It’s very difficult to assume that you are a company that wants to come from one target to another one if you don’t have a succession plan ready. You don’t want to make a strong changes. You want to make sure that the changes that you are doing are aligned with your strategy, with your industry, etc. I think that if the succession plans are really committed with diversity, it’s going to be able to help women to develop those skills that are required to do the best of their job, that, at the end, the company requires. How the merit is there, we need to make sure that the merit is what leads or lead you to make the decision.

But at the same time, to get the merit, you need to have the training, the opportunities for your diverse talent in order to make the change. I think that when you see the cause, and probably I have mentioned this data before, how the impact of undeserving women in the financial industry costs to the financial industry is very important. We don’t have the data for Colombia, but in 2020, there was a study made that showed that on their investment in women in the financial sector in the United States cost to the financial industry $500 billion. That’s in different sectors. There is also a business case when you talk about diversity in the financial industry.

I think that the last part is on the board of directors. We have one chapter that I mentioned to you and it’s trying to generate the business case for companies to bring more women to the board of directors. In the case of Colombia, we had made important advances, probably not necessarily at the speed that these things required, but I think that there is an important commitment. We are coming from around 16/17% of women participation in board of directors in Colombia. We finished 2021 probably with a number close to 19%. So, there has been an important improvement. We are part of the global chapter of the 30% club that I’m sure you know of in England that is a corporate commitment to try to make at least 30% of the participation of women in boards of directors.

Why 30%? Why not 50? Because 30% is the minimum level when you feel that there is real diversity on the board of directors. It’s not enough necessarily to have one. There are also some companies that even if they have women participation in their board of directors, it’s coming from family. So if you try to separate, the number can go a little bit lower when you take out the participation of family members into the board of directors. So, there are a lot of things that have been done, and I think that as soon as you have a leader as Juan Carlos, a board of directors that understand and bring an openness to bring diversity, is what we need to make sure that the change is coming.

Julia: I wonder if I could just pick up on one of the points, many, many points, then thank you for all your thoughts on that, which plays back into some of your opening remarks, Juan Carlos, about financial inclusion, and as Angela was just saying there about the importance of the imperative of considering diversity and inclusion in your corporate strategy to serve your very diverse customer base as well. When I think about, financial inclusion clearly is a very high priority for you, as you were remarking in your opening comments as well, what initiatives and efforts are having the greatest impact and where do you believe we should focus?

Juan Carlos: As you mentioned, that’s a big, big focus for us and it’s part of our strategy. Let me mention some initiatives that we have around that. We issue a bond in Panama, a 50-million bond with the only focus on promoting businesses, small and medium businesses led by women. So it’s a 50-million bond, it’s a gender bond with the only purpose of promoting the development of businesses led by women in Panama. We had the sponsorship of the IDB. It was the first gender bond in Latin America, and that has been very, very successful. Then, we, in Colombia, we decided to create a special line of credit just for women and for rural women, which is one of our big challenges in our countries in Latin America. In cities, most of them, they have access and they have the opportunity to have a relationship with a financial service company. But in rural areas of Colombia and other countries in Latin America, it’s very difficult.

The numbers show that when you have an indicator of around 87% of Colombian adults have access to a financial services product, but when you work to rural areas, that’s 40%, four-zero. It’s amazing how they’re different. So we are focusing on giving access to financial services in rural areas to women. Basically, we focus on entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurship, and how are we going to help them not just with credit, but giving them access to knowledge, to tools, and how they can improve the way they manage the businesses along with credit. We set a special line of credit for that, and it’s doing very, very well. We are positively impacting access, because once they have access to resources and credit, the development of those businesses really changes the community around those businesses. It’s not just that business that starts to improve, but employees.

There’s a debate if you should have that gender focus and I argued that we should, we must do that. Somebody could say, “But that’s also gender bias.” And I’d say, “Yes, it’s gender bias because we have to do it”. We have to close the gap because we have a gap, a big gap, a gap that is cultural. The first point or the starting point is we need to realise that we have gender bias, gender bias as a person, men and women, and corporate biases and we need to talk about that. That has been our journey. Angela mentioned that we need to just take this out from HR and be in more corporate conversation. It bears on our conversation to realise your personal biases and the corporate bias and start talking about. From there, you start moving.

So we have a strategy, an inside strategy for our employees and outside strategy with our clients around gender equality and gender opportunities, and that has been really, really successful. We are moving and we are encouraging other companies to do this because we need to have a movement in which many companies start moving in that direction in order to close the gaps that we have.

Julia: It’s fascinating listening to you talk because there, you’re talking about very mindful product development and product propositions for your customer base, as well as a cultural change within the organisation, plus the potential. I mean, I just keep thinking about the ripple effect that this will have in terms of inspiring, not only a current generation or generations of women, but also the next generation coming through, which is incredibly important and right out into the rural communities as well. Angela, I’d love to hear your thoughts because you were talking there also about on the board level, there’s a degree of women getting into positions because of family ties necessarily. Social inclusion comes into this as well, but I’d love to hear your thoughts about social inclusion and how that flows out into financial inclusion as well.

Angela:  I think that when we are talking about financial inclusion, there is a very important concept for why it’s important for women to have better finance inclusion. There is a direct link between financial independence and reduction of intrafamily violence. Colombia is one of the countries with the highest rates of violence against women, despite the fact that you have also one of the highest level of women participation on the working force. So, those are the types of contrast that you have in a country as Colombia. We have been living, probably for another podcast, a very difficult violent situation in our country that has deteriorated the power of women in many fronts, but I will say that financial inclusion is a way to recover part of that power that women have lost in Colombia, and as Juan Carlos mentioned, not necessarily in the cities.

We are talking about very different regions that we, in Colombia, normally called that this is like another Colombia, because it’s completely different when we are talking about cities and when we are talking about other regions. So the access to credit, the access to pay for small companies, for small businesses is difficult in Colombia. I think it’s important to have the commitment from different banks, but it’s a problem in an industry around the globe. Just thinking about all the capitals that are dedicated globally to the venture capital, just between 1 -2% of that goes through the women businesses. So, you see that there is huge space for improvement or there are a lot of challenges that we are facing. I think that on the other side, financial inclusion also talks about how women can make the decision when they invest, because we are assuming that women don’t necessarily have money.

That’s one part of the problem. But when women have money, they are not necessarily seen as a driver of investment. So that’s another chapter that we want to around financial industry in Colombia is let’s talk about women that probably can be riskier in the type of decisions that they are making on the financial system, how they can also drive the change on the, for example, asset management industry, where we have a target of women that have important savings. Those are the types of things that I think that are important also to include into the discussion.

Julia: I think that’s a perfect moment to turn to Cynthia Akinsanya for some research to support today’s discussion.

Cynthia: There are large gender gaps in the business world of Latin America and the Caribbean, where women hold only 15% of management positions and own only 14% of companies according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank. The study entitled An Unequal Olympiad: Gender Equity in Latin American and Caribbean Companies also reveals that only one out of 10 companies is managed by a woman. The study was based on interviews with women entrepreneurs and a survey of over a thousand companies from countries in the region, discussing female participation in their organisations, policies towards their employees and the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the main findings are women participation predominant significantly in areas, such as public relations, and in areas such as foreign trade, women represent less than 35% of people employed. There is a higher rate of women in lower positions, 36%, than in higher positions, 25%. Women represent only 35% of the workforce that uses advanced technologies. And six out of 10 companies do not provide any type of maternity leave beyond what is determined by law, and only 15% of companies analyse whether there are salary gaps within their organisation.

Julia: Thank you, Cynthia. Let’s take a moment to just remind everyone about how to find DiverCity Podcast and the links to all the research. It could be found on our website, divercitypodcast.com. Don’t forget, that’s DiverCity with a C, not with an S, divercitypodcast.com. That’s where you can find all our episodes. Sign up for early notifications of future recordings and also our special newsletter called DE&I That Caught Our Eye, so you can stay on top of the latest news that’s coming out in the industry driving change. Please do follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and DiverCity Podcast is available on BrightTALK and all good podcast channels. We’d really love a rating because it all helps to promote the show.

Juan Carlos, we were talking earlier about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the conversation about financial inclusion and also in the conversation about sustainability as well. As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, I was like, “We’re going to come to that because I want to talk about ESG.” Now, I would love to hear your thoughts about how diversity, equity, and inclusion is being included within ESG, normally under the social, so it’s environmental, social and governance, under the social and under the governance as well. I’d love to hear your thoughts about how this flows into the sustainability agenda.

Juan Carlos: Let me give you a personal view in ESG. I think many companies around the world are doing very good things around E, the environment, and they have their agenda and we are moving forward. Still, we have way to go and many challenges, but a lot of E. Also, on G, we have many initiatives and standards. At the social part, the social part for me is the most challenging one. First of all, it’s very difficult to measure and you need to work on all of them to really create an impact on society. There is interaction among the environment, your governance, and how you will manage and what are your practises and what is your social impact. All of that, it creates what companies should do to really be sustainable, because the sustainability concept is how you become a company that is good for society, so you will be there for many, many times, including environment.

There is too much focus, I think, on environment, and we need that because it’s very important. You ask how that combines? Because you need to work on those three aspects. It’s key to do it and it’s really important to work with all of them in order to really create. We have a chapter or a pillar around environment and how are we going to help our customer base to start or to do projects around how to become better for the environment. We start measuring what are their impact, and then helping them create the projects and financing the projects. So it’s through those, through that customer that you really impact, but you start to first create awareness of what is going on and the importance of working on projects around energy, around how you manage your emissions.

It’s hard. I mean, it’s hard because in countries like us, a developing country, it’s difficult to do investments or to work on investments that seem not to have a direct impact on the revenue, because what you are doing is more thinking about long-term. So we are working with our clients that we have a pillar. And so, it’s key to have that. On the social part, it’s really what at the end completes the circle and creates that positive impact on society. And that’s, for me, what business and in particular, financial services businesses should do or working with our clients.

Julia: It’s always interesting when I have guests on the show, because it inspires me, It just triggers extra thoughts. So I can’t help, but feel that as you’re going out and investing in some of these environmental projects and putting your green bonds to work, particularly to support women out in rural communities, when the two of them combine, the potential for showcasing investment in women, particularly in rural communities that is based around the environment has huge potential to make a difference. It’s just a quick thought while I had it. Angela, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well about how does DE&I interplay with ES&G?

Angela: I think that the ESG is a very strong trend right now that I really value, and as I have mentioned before, it’s a way to make sure that the different companies connect closer with society. As Juan mentioned, the social connection is probably today more important than ever. Why is it important? We are having $30 trillion of intergeneration between the baby boomers and the millennials in the next 10 years. Wealth transmission of $30 trillion, that’s a huge number. Now, millennials that are the 34% of the working force are making the decisions on consumption. They are more responsible and more sensitive to the level of decision that they are making in terms of consumption. So they are going to choose companies, entities that probably generate a broader spectrum, and that are linked to the ESG.

What is a challenge right now is that the environmental, the social and the governance is very difficult to measure in some ways. It’s probably one of the challenges that when you need to connect, that there is a financial impact, but also that there is more than financial materiality in your company. That is the double materiality, the double measure that you need to make sure that companies are having, how your results in financial terms, but also your shareholders need to understand and need to be connected that there is other ways to generate impact and to be measured as a company, the impact on the social, the impact on the environment. For that, in the case of the financial industry, you need to have to set by example. So you have your own measures about your consumption in your companies, in your buildings, in the lights that you are using, etc, etc, the level of carbons that you generate that is not necessarily easy to do it, but that’s something that companies are doing.

In terms of how you are driving the investment, as Juan Carlos mentioned, is a challenge, but I think there is a trend. Now, there is a lot of impact and pressure also from the proxies, probably more in the United States and in other parts that are making sure that the decision that the board of directors that the C-level in companies are making are responsible. How do you connect that with many fronts? I think that is the only way to survive for companies right now in the globe. It’s not necessarily going to be easy. It has to be taken with a lot of responsibility because you cannot necessarily avoid or destroy the companies that are making huge progresses, but are having different challenges to do it. So you have to probably be more connected with companies, understand what is their narrative, understand what are their strategic plans in order to make sure that the changes and the level of the responsible decisions that you are making are clear and are driving to a better world in probably in too many years, but I think that is something that is going here to stay.

Julia: It’s wonderful to hear you return to the opening remarks about the connectivity, which really matters with community as well. I’m going to ask you, I’m going to set you both a challenge. Literally, in 30 seconds, I’d love to hear your final thoughts as we wrap up this fantastic conversation or close out the episode. I’m really keen to think about how during these economically interesting times, there is a risk that the diversity, equity and inclusion conversation falls off the board level in favour of other priorities and I would love to hear your compelling reasons for why it really should remain high. Juan Carlos, can I come to you first of all?

Juan Carlos: Because it’s good business. It’s business. I mean, it’s a social responsibility. It is a thing that we have to do, but it’s not just that, because it’s good business. I mean, being diverse brings in different ways of new things, creating that environment in which all people could develop their potential that they have equal opportunities. It’s good business. So it’s something that is good for society, but it’s also good business. So we all have to work on doing that and start realising what our agenda bias, our biases in general, start taking care of them as a person and as a corporation and do it because it’s good for society. It’s good for business. So, we have to do it.

Julia: Thank you. Of course, I would make my opening remarks about this wellness for all, and you can see how all this folds come together so beautifully as well. Thank you very much for your thoughts on that. Angela, same question to you, if you would, why does DE&I matter on the board level right now.

Angela:  I think that doing the same thing, the same way doesn’t generate change. Through diversity, we have the opportunity to do the things in a better way, and that’s why diversity brings. I agree with you, Julia, that there are tons of priorities around the globe, but everything that you are trying to change, bringing diversity is bringing in a better way to solve problems around the globe. I think that this is the way to do it.

Julia: I have to say, it’s been the most fantastic conversation. It’s been such a joy to have you both on to really think about this in so, so many different perspectives. When you think about it, we’ve talked about it from a commercial point of view, a board point of view, think about how you drive change through the organisation, practical things that we could be doing, and then also thinking through the sustainability, the ESG agenda, and then finally into why it really, really matters right now. Juan Carlos Mora, thank you so much for joining us today.

Juan Carlos: Thank you, Julia. It was a pleasure, great conversation. Thank you very much for inviting me. It was a pleasure to share this conversation with you and with Angela.

Julia: Well, Angela, thank you for joining us. It’s been great to have you on the show.

Angela:  Thank you, Julia. Thank you, Juan. It has been a pleasure.

Julia: And to all our listeners at DiverCity Podcast, thank you as always for tuning in. I’ve been Julia Streets, and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Kieran: This episode of DiverCity Podcast was produced by me, Kieran Yates, on behalf of Julia Streets Productions. Thanks to Cynthia Akinsanya for her insights. You can find out more about the guests on this week’s show on our website, divercitypodcast.com, and that’s DiverCity with a C, not an S. Whilst you’re there, you can also sign up to our newsletter for all our latest updates. All our episodes are available in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. If you enjoy DiverCity Podcast, remember to share it on social media and give us a rating or review. It really helps promote the show to a wider audience. Finally, our Twitter handle is @divercitypod. Thanks for listening.