The head of Deutsche Bank has highlighted the danger presented by a lack of diversity. The Wall Street Journal reports that in a business school lecture Anshu Jain, co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank, explained that a number of issues in his industry could have been avoided if gender diversity was more prevalent.
“If I think about some of the issues that my industry is dealing with, frankly, if we had higher gender diversity perhaps some the objectionable stuff that we’ve seen may not have happened,” he said. He suggested that a lack of women in boardrooms could be to blame for the worst of the financial crisis.
“Show me any monolithic organization where everyone thinks, acts, looks the same – and you’ve got a very risky organization.”
However the German bank remains monolithic; all seven members of the Deutsche Bank board are male. Jain acknowledged that his own company is not as diverse as it ideally should be, recognising the gap between “the realization that this is critical and then actually being able to get the right ratio”.
When Jain took on the co-chief executive position in 2012 the bank pledged to diversify its top ranks by hiring more women to management positions, but so far they haven’t been swift to action.
According to Deutsche Bank’s website, 42% of its staff are female, and women comprise just 18.7% of managers at senior level. The good news is the bank has just appointed its first woman, Sylvie Matherat, to its group executive committee.
Even still a public acknowledgment of the importance of diversity is welcome.