Northern Trust’s Thomas Sees Need for Better Diversity Targets

Corporate America’s problem in addressing racial inequality stems partly from a reluctance to set specific goals and targets, said Shundrawn Thomas, president of Northern Trust Asset Management.

“There is, in some corners, a reflexive rejection to mandates or targets,” Thomas said Tuesday on Bloomberg Radio. “Anything of import that we are focused on, not only do we have priorities around, we have targets, and we have measurements against. All of those are common in our business. In fact, not only are they common, they are expected.”

Shundrawn Thomas

Source: Northern Trust Corporation via Businesswire

His remarks come in a year of racial reckoning in America. Protests against police violence and broader, systemic racism have swept the country since May, including recent uprisings in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin. Corporations are facing pressure to reform hiring practices and treatment of people of color.

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Northern Trust Asset Management, which oversaw $1 trillion for clients as of June 30, is a division of Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp.

Thomas has written open letters to corporate America on these issues, including one on Sept. 1 called “I Can’t Feel My Pain.”

“As a Black executive, I have been conditioned to restrain my emotions and suppress my pain,” he wrote. “While we certainly must act, our actions will only be effective and sustained if we continually listen intellectually and emotionally.”

--With assistance from Philip Gray.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Annie Massa in New York at amassa12@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sam Mamudi at smamudi@bloomberg.net

Josh Friedman, Dan Reichl

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