In the first white paper of this series, The Path to Inclusive Capitalism: An Asset Owner Guide for Investment Portfolios,  we laid out four core pillars to focus on for progressing diversity, equity, and inclusion within the financial industry: incorporating diversity and inclusion into governance, sourcing diverse talent, underwriting equitably, and committing to equitable monitoring and engagement. We provided 17 strategies bucketed across these four components to ground the audience in the existing research and encourage those who haven’t begun a thoughtful effort to expand inclusion internally.

This companion piece builds on the four pillars and serves as a guidebook for specific actions that we encourage the asset management industry to execute for enhancing efficiency and value-creation opportunities. This guide is designed for institutional investors, including public and private pension plans, family offices, foundations, and other allocators leading the effort to establish inclusive efforts within their institutions.

Our commitment to this work is impact-focused but has always been backed by data. Less diverse capital markets are less efficient and leave money on the table for asset owners, managers, entrepreneurs, and customers. If we are to achieve the goals of capitalism, efficiently allocating resources to the most efficient performers, inclusion must be at the center.