2022 Shortlist: Best SME D&I Innovation Award

The details of the SME awards are the same as for the awards for (large) corporates, although corporates entering this award category must demonstrate that they have an annual turnover of less than £250m. As a brand new membership category, announced earlier this year, 2022 will see the formal introduction of just one award – the D&I Innovation Award – and we will encourage all SMEs working within the financial services sector and eco-system to enter. As a celebration of this new membership category, it will not be necessary for the SMEs to be WIBF members to qualify. Additional award categories will be rolled out in 2023 to mirror the full ‘large’ corporate programme.

We are delighted to share more details of each of the shortlisted nominees, with a reminder of the category overview.

CITY HIVE

City Hive is an organisation focused on the asset management sector given the differences the industry has versus many of the other sectors in financial services. City Hive’s awards submission focuses more on the jobs board and the proprietary software the firm has developed to help women, rather the other projects developed by the team, given it serves as a great nice introduction to the firm and allows the team at City Hive to start to understand the corporate culture and approach being taken by its clients’ in-house teams.

City Hive as a firm was set up to challenge the status quo, recognising the opportunities for diverse talent and disenfranchised individuals to continue to forge a career.

In addition, the firm’s approach allows it to mirror some of the industry developments, e.g. the increasing demand for ESG investments, without feeling that these are being forced on clients or that radical rethinking is needed.

THE GENDER INDEX

The Gender Index is a ground-breaking new interactive tool which, for the first time ever, provides gender disaggregated data to the public through an interactive website. Founded by mnAI Data Solutions Ltd, The Gender Index has also recently published the largest research study into female entrepreneurship ever undertaken, which accurately measures the number of female-led companies and their impact on the UK economy. AI-powered, it holds live data on more than 4m active UK companies – information which is constantly refreshed and always up to date.

Working with multiple stakeholders such as the UK Government, policymakers, The Rose Review for Female Entrepreneurship, NatWest, Goldman Sachs, Amazon Web Services, Shoosmiths and leading universities from around the UK, the team behind The Gender Index believes it is a truly exciting innovation, which has the power to transform the way in which the UK economy collects and analyses data to support a more equal future.

The team at The Gender Index is grateful to NatWest for putting forward the award submission on its behalf.

WIDER THINKING

Wider Thinking is a platform dedicated to training its clients’ employees on matters related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). Its platform aims to be inclusive of all employees, no matter where they are based, and uses best practice and educationally proven techniques to train employees over a pre-agreed period of time in an approach that is flexible and adaptive to each client’s needs. It provides each firm with a clear path to improving their implementation of DE&I policies and process, as well as their acceptance throughout their workforce.

The team believes its entry should win because of the various techniques and content that have beendeveloped which seek to inform, education and entertain. The approach is different from its peer group because of the test and learn approach taken to developing the innovative platform.

The team’s confidence in its platform has also led to an offer for Wider Thinking to partner with WIBF to support its mentoring scheme and benefit those involved in its scheme across all levels of seniority and across the spectrum of firms active in financial services.