Celebrating Black History Month

Our Black History Month campaign runs through October and will see Investment20/20 work with our impressive trainees and alumni to encourage young black people to seek a career in investment management and understand that the sector is accessible to them and celebrates diversity. This follows in the footsteps of our Black History Month campaign last year, where we shone a spotlight on the experiences of new black joiners to our industry.

Insights from 5 Black Leaders

This year in addition to our trainees and alumni, we will profile five black industry leaders and share insights into their careers and experiences across our social media platforms. During each day in October, our participating industry leaders will answer a question about their career story, the skills they find most valuable and the things that excite them about working in our industry. They will also share a short video message outlining their experiences. The following industry leaders will be taking part:

Marisa Hall, Co-Head of the Thinking Ahead Institute at Willis Towers Watson

Darren Johnson, Chief Operating Officer of Listed Equities, Executive Director, Impax Asset Management

Omotunde Lawal, Head of Emerging Market Corporate Debt, Barings

Kimberley Lewis, Director, Federated Hermes

Yvette Forrester, Senior Specialist, EMEA Regional Change, Co-Chair IMPACT EMEA, BNY Mellon

Q&A from our Black Alumni and Trainees

We know that young people often access career information and role models via social media, and having successfully piloted Instagram ‘takeovers’ with universities in the summer, we are delighted to launch our own Q&A to recognise Black History Month on 7 October, 10am – 12pm. We have some of our black current and alumni trainees supporting us, answering questions sent in from students. Please do follow us on Instagram, share and like our posts to support this event!

Moving on Up

In addition, on the 20th October, we are hosting a virtual insight event with a network of community organisations that deliver Moving on Up, a project, aimed at 16-24 year old black men in London. The event is focused on building aspirations, sharing of personal career stories and belonging in the work place. Speakers include:

Adeyemi Thomas, Client Services, GAM Investments

Darren Johnson, COO of Listed Equities, Impax Asset Management

Bernard Robinson, Vice Principal Talent Acquisition, Northern Trust

Abdalla Abuukar, Digital Marketing Trainee, J O Hambro Capital Management

We will be posting on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter following this event – please do share and like out posts!