想赢得rfp？Be Prepared to Answer Diversity Questions

In 2018, the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association began asking prospective asset managers about diversity.

The questionnaire- 给予应对Lacera对提案的要求的管理者 - 询问有关世卫组织实施公司的详细信息，有关努力多样性政策，有多少机密解决或不披露协议与工作场所性骚扰或歧视有关，以及公司是否进行薪酬差距分析。

LACERA is not the only asset allocator to make diversity and inclusion questions an explicit part of the request for proposal and search process. For instance, in current requests for proposals both theIllinois State Universities Retirement Systemand the俄亥俄州公共雇员退休系统包括多样性的问题。

“We want to influence practices and measure progress over time because we believe that diverse and inclusive teams correlate with better performance,” Jonathan Grabel, LACERA’s chief investment officer, said by phone Friday.

Even in the two years since LACERA implemented the survey, Grabel observed that times have changed in terms of how asset managers view diversity and inclusion. Following the protests that erupted last summer in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a new urgency emerged among asset owners to do what they could to demand change, he said.

For many, that meant looking into the diversity and inclusion practices at the asset managers they already worked with. Yale Investments Office’s CIO, David Swensen, for instance,penned a letterto managers in October, seeking data on diversity.

Meanwhile Jason Lamin’s Lenox Park Solutions, a technology firm that offers a tool to help allocators measure manager diversity, has seen an uptick in business in recent months, as allocators like the Kresge Foundation and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System seek to learn more about diversity at the asset management firms they work with.

After the 2020 protests, there was “this general reluctance for organizations to simply be able to put out a press statement, affirm their principles, turn the page, and move on,” Lamin said by phone. “Governing bodies like boards or allocators of capital are starting to say, ‘What are the structural things that are in our control where we can exert influence here in a tangible way?’”

The allocators Lamin works with generally use the firm’s scoring system to assess their current managers, but he said one of the firm’s clients is also starting to use it as a part of their RFP process.

[IIDeep Dive:新的'FICO评分'卡波斯和NY共同使用用于推动经理多样性]

At LACERA, Grabel said the investment office is taking a multifaceted approach to addressing diversity.

“We believe that diligence is perpetual,” Grabel said. He pointed to LACERA’s quarterly manager scorecard,which rates private markets managers based on performance, fees, ESG, and other factors, as one way that the pension continues diligence over time.

Diversity is included as a factor in the scorecard’s organization and operations category. In that category, there are three possible scores a manager can receive: S+, which is the best; S, or S-. Just seven of the retirement association’s over 90 managers received the worst score, the most recent scorecard shows.

But the RFP process is important, too. LACERA’s diversity questionnaire, which is included in a larger set of questions and assessments related to general fund performance and operations, is five pages long.

It asks managers not only about their internal practices but also about how they evaluate diversity at their portfolio companies or the fund managers they engage with.

它还询问每个经理在其董事会，高管，投资专业人员和投资支持工人奠定了详细信息。该调查另外要求经理包括在公司收到的黑色，亚洲，原生和多种族投资专业人员的总补偿百分比。

Grabel表示，大多数管理人员对多样性调查问卷响应。

“We really want to probe and to the extent that someone doesn’t respond, it begs follow-up questions and we do follow up,” Grabel said. “Just a no-response is somewhat telling. We really look to engage and have a conversation.”