Awards Alumni – KPMG & Unida RaiseYou – Mita Dave and Noeleen Cowley

As the 2023 awards are around the corner, we caught up with another of last year’s winners, KPMG & Unida who won the award for Best D&I Innovation. You can read more about the programme and why they were such worthy winners, here.

Mita Dave and Noeleen Cowley, who lead RaiseYou answered our questions about winning the award, why the RaiseYou programme is important, why it has been a success and how it has evolved.

What does winning the WIBF Award mean to you both?

We are honoured to win. RaiseYou has created an empowered and engaged female talent in our Financial Services Consulting business, and it has also created a community where women support one another and are mentoring the next generation. We are incredibly proud of what the programme has achieved, and winning the WIBF award was great recognition for the RaiseYou team, who continue to put so much effort into making the programme a success.

What does it mean organisationally?

As a firm, we are committed to creating an inclusive environment where all colleagues thrive and reach their full potential, whatever their identity or background. As part of our inclusion, diversity and equity plan we have outlined bold ambitions and set long-term targets to 2030. Programmes such as RaiseYou will help us achieve these. Winning this award was a huge step in recognising and celebrating the great work that RaiseYou has done to-date and continues to do.

What was the impetus behind the launch of RaiseYou?

RaiseYou was launched in 2018 as a result of an independent review conducted by our partners and UNIDA that focussed on identifying the barriers that existed for the progression of our female talent in Financial Services Consulting. The programme was then established to take action to remove these barriers and help achieve gender parity at senior grades. Since its launch, the programme has grown to help create an inclusive and diverse environment with inspiring leaders and an empowered pipeline of high potential diverse talent. It has a strong focus on supporting our female, Black heritage, Asian and other ethnic minority colleagues.

RaiseYou was delivered in conjunction with Unida Consulting – how significant was it that ‘outsiders’ were involved; were they able to take a broader view?

Working with UNIDA has been, and continues to be, critical to the success of the programme. UNIDA provides an independent perspective as well as understanding how we operate as a business. This enables them to provide highly impactful coaching to the programme’s participants and unique insights to our leadership team.

Your nomination said “The RaiseYou programme has been instrumental in shifting the dial on gender equality at KPMG.” What has been different about this programme that previous approaches didn’t reach? What brought RaiseYou such success?

A key driver behind the success of RaiseYou has been the commitment from our leadership, the firm and the participants. RaiseYou is time-intensive and a financial commitment for the firm. This buy-in encourages our participants to take the time needed to invest in their own development, and those on the programme are required to ensure full engagement. This collective commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive environment in Financial Services Consulting is what makes the programme such a success.

What was it that made you think that you had a very effective programme on your hands? Was there a conversation or a meeting where you saw that this was going to have a meaningful effect?

The Programme has deliberately been outcomes-focused from the outset – continually measuring the achievements and learning through participant feedback. We have several measures of success for the programme, including the increase in participants with a clear sponsor, the number of promotions and a net promotor score. However, the clearest indicator of the effectiveness of the programme is speaking to candidates and hearing about the impact the programme had on them. We spotlight personal reflections of the programme’s effectiveness at our programme events, which are always inspiring.

What is the key change delivered through this programme that has made a real difference to gender parity? How is that viewed more widely?

The key change the programme has driven is an inspiring, diverse leadership across Financial Services Consulting, with an equally inspiring and diverse pipeline of talent across all grades. Looking back to when we first started the programme, the need for more role models was highlighted as essential for diverse talent progression and we believe RaiseYou has fundamentally driven that change.

How important is the pipeline aspect of the programme?

This is a critical aspect to ensure the long-term sustainability and growth of our diverse and inclusive business. The programme has expanded to include our female Assistant Managers and Managers, and ethnic minority colleagues ensuring that we are supporting our people across even more grades and ensuring a consistent, high-performing pipeline to set us up for success in the future.

Can you see a point where RaiseYou won’t be needed and that the changes it has made will be an integral part of how the organisation is run?

We are currently still in our change cycle. We are getting results but we need to stick to the programme until it is fully embedded in the organisation before we can determine whether the programme is no longer required. The key for us is maintaining focus on our ambition for an empowered and engaged diverse talent pool, and therefore the programme will continue and evolve to meet the changing requirements.

What would you advise other organisations looking to learn from your success?

We would encourage other organisations to use an external partner when launching something like this, and to be prepared to dedicate a lot of time to each of the individuals on the programme.. These programmes require a broad range of commitments to be successful, including from leadership, line managers and participants. The key is securing that commitment up front,  forward planning to enable participants to commit their time around their day-to-day responsibilities.

Were there any particular incidents in your careers that made you decide on the necessity of this programme?

Noeleen made partner quite early on in her career, which was not typical. This sparked the desire to create a programme for more mentorship throughout the partnership journey. Mita’s own experience and journey to partner has created a passion to give back and support diverse talent within the firm to help realise their goals.

What do you wish you had known earlier in your careers?

To really understand the difference between a mentor and a sponsor, and how to leverage those resources. A sponsor is willing to use their own personal capital to help you succeed, while a mentor supports in more of an advisory capacity.

What is the most useful career advice that you have been given?

Lean into the things you’re nervous about and, when you do it so often, it’ll eventually get easier.