Q&A on The Diversity Project
Dan Houlihan is the head of asset servicing for Americas at Northern Trust and also serves as the chairman of NICSA, an asset management industry group. In that role, he’s helped launch the US brand of The Diversity Project, an industry initiative to improve representation. We sat down with Dan to talk diversity, communications in the financial industry.
Q. How did you get involved in The Diversity Project?
A. Northern Trust is actively involved in the UK branch of the Diversity Project and they’ve gained quite a bit of momentum in just a few years. A colleague of mine suggested that we approach NICSA to serve as the platform on which we could launch a similar initiative in North America.
Q. Why have you chosen this model – why get executives involved?
A. Successful business leaders understand that we will drive innovation and performance most effectively when we embed diversity and inclusion into the day to day fabric of running our business. Importantly, we have to recognize this not a “diversity and inclusion initiative”, but a business imperative.
This interview was conducted by Cognito Vice President Jon Brubaker at the NICSA Conference in Boston.
