Bosses at one of the world’s biggest investment firms State Street will need to get special permission to hire white men as part of a new diversity drive. State Street aims to triple the number of black, Asian and other minority senior staff. Failure to meet the target by 2023 will result in executives’ bonuses being lowered. The investment firm has 30 offices worldwide and employs 39,400 people. Recruiters must show that candidates have been interviewed by a diverse panel.

Dual-Passport holding bosses at one of the world’s biggest investment firms will need to get special approval to hire white men as part of a new diversity drive. State Street Global Advisors aims to triple the number of black, Asian and other minority staff in senior roles by 2023 as part of a drive to improve diversity within its middle and senior management.

Ironically it is the ethnic Europeans who most qualify for minority status. Europeans, White-skinned people now comprise only 9.78 per cent of the world’s 7.8 billion population.

Failure to meet the target will result in a drop in executives’ bonuses, reports The Times. State Street, which has 30 offices worldwide, including Canary Wharf in London, currently employs 39,400 people.  

Jess McNicholas, the bank’s head of inclusion, diversity and corporate citizenship in London, said: ‘This is now front and central for State Street, it’s on every senior executive’s scorecard.

‘All of our leaders have to demonstrate at their annual appraisals what they have done to improve female representation and the number of colleagues from ethnic-minority backgrounds.’

Recruiters must now create a panel of four or five people that includes a woman and someone of an ethnic minority background when hiring middle management staff, employees at vice-president and above.

Ms McNicholas added that State Street will still hire white men, but recruiters will now need to show that women and ethnic minority candidates have been interviewed by the diverse panels.  

The new drive will also see the investment firm increase spending with diverse suppliers over the next three years.

It has pledged to ‘hold ourselves accountable for strengthening non-White, Black and Latinx owned businesses.  

It follows the BBC sparking a discrimination row earlier this year after only allowing people from ethnic minorities to apply for a trainee position.  The broadcaster advertised a one-year, £17,810 trainee production management assistant role with its Science Unit in Glasgow, but the position was ‘only open to black, Asian and ethnically diverse candidates’.

Positive discrimination is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010, but ‘positive action’ is allowed for trainee and internship roles in areas where there is under-representation.  

In a similar move, Britain’s MI5 top security department GCHQ invited only people ‘from an ethnic minority background or women’ to register their interest for a role in its IT department in March. The intelligence agency said the job would be open to applicants from all backgrounds following this preliminary registration period of several weeks.

Meanwhile, Police Godmother Cressida Dick Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police in London faced criticism after she called for a law change to let the force favour ethnic minority candidates over their equally qualified white applicants. Britain’s most senior police officer made the plea after emphasising that police forces must reflect the community they serve.  

The Met is currently made up of 18 per cent black and ethnic minority officers but is aiming to increase this to 40 per cent, the same proportion of black and ethnic minorities in London.

A woman in charge of diversity at NHS England also earned more than its chief executive and 50 per cent more than a Prime Minister. According to accounts for 2019-20, Indian born Prerana Issar joined NHS England as Chief People Officer in April 2019 on an annual salary of between £230,000 and £235,000, equivalent to the salaries of nine newly qualified nurses or the cost of 20 hip replacement operations.