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BISA Portfolio Podcast
BISA Portfolio Podcast
BISA Portfolio Podcast — DE&I Voices: Keeping DE&I Relevant With Heather Hepburn and Jim Nickens
In this episode of the BISA Portfolio Podcast series “DE&I Voices,” guest host Logan Hickman of Nationwide interviews Jim Nickens of InSource, Inc. and Heather Hepburn of Webster Bank. All are members of the BISA Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, a group that inspires member firms to develop an inclusive working environment to improve business results and strengthen our industry.
Listen to the full episode to learn about how Hepburn, Nickens and Hickman are engaging in DE&I conversations and initiatives at their organizations.
About Logan Hickman
Logan Hickman, ChFC®, CLU®, serves as director of advisory annuity distribution for Nationwide. In his role, he leads a team of high-performing sales professionals who are responsible for growing advisory annuity sales within the broker-dealer channel. Hickman is also responsible for helping design and implement long-term sales strategies that align with Nationwide's mission of protecting people, businesses and futures with extraordinary care.
About Heather Hepburn
Hepburn is the managing director of the Wealth Management Operations team at Webster Investments Services, Inc., with responsibility for managing the functions and processes of the back office as well as the relationships with its internal and external business partners. Heather is a leader with expertise in people management and broker-dealer operations. Her oversight includes due diligence, regulatory compliance and operations management. She manages special projects and collaborates with the leadership team on strategic initiatives.
About Jim Nickens
Nickens is president of InSource in Indianapolis, IN., a leading financial solutions partner for banks, broker-dealers and financial professionals across the country. He joined InSource in 2011 after a successful tenure as senior vice president and sales manager for Key Investment Services LLC (KIS) where he was responsible for providing sales leadership to financial advisors in the Eastern New York and Vermont regions. Prior to joining Key, Nickens served as regional investment sales manager and vice president for NatCity Investments, managing a successful team of financial advisors in Indiana and Kentucky. Prior to that position, he was vice president and affiliate sales manager for Fifth Third Securities in Toledo, OH. There he was named Manager of the Year.
BISA is the leading financial services industry association dedicated to serving those responsible for the marketing, sales and distribution of securities, insurance and other financial products and advisory services through the bank channel.
Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode in the BISA Portfolio Podcast series covering diversity, equity and inclusion topics important to the financial services industry. I'm Logan Hickman, director of advisory annuity distribution at Nationwide. I also serve on the BISA DE&I Committee alongside our two guests for this episode. I'm excited to welcome Heather Hepburn of Webster Bank and Jim Nickens of InSource, inc. to join me in discussing our topic
for today's episode:how are we keeping DE&I relevant and on the table at our organizations and in this changing environment? But first, I want to encourage our listeners to please subscribe to this podcast on the app you're using now and please share with your colleagues if you find this episode valuable. Okay, now on to the episode. Welcome Heather and Jim. Can you please introduce yourselves?
Heather Hepburn:Sure. Thank you for inviting me to join this podcast, Logan and Jim. I am Heather Hepburn. I'm the managing director of wealth management operations, responsible for vendor relationship management and back office administration for the team at the Webster Investments program within Webster Bank. I serve as the escalation point for about 70 financial advisors and a liaison to the banking center partners.
Logan Hickman:Great. Thank you! Jim?
Jim Nickens:Thank you, Logan, and great to be here with you Heather, as well. First, I want to start by thanking BISA for the opportunity to participate on this podcast. Along with being the outgoing chair of the DE&I Committee, in my day job at InSource, I head up our outreach to and support of financial institutions via access to low- and no-risk solutions, education and personal development.
Logan Hickman:Well, perfect. Great. Thank you so much for being here, and I think it's worth noting that we are recording this series live from our DE&I Committee meeting here in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. It's great to be with you both in person. Well, I'm looking forward to our conversation today, and wanted to start with diving into how you both interact with any DE&I initiatives currently running at your organizations.
Heather Hepburn:I'll go first. I am a member of the milcom, which is a military community, business resource group at work. Although I don't have any family members who served in the armed forces, I have friends who have served. You might ask, why are you a member of the milcom BRG; you don't have family who serve. But I think that getting involved and learning more about our veterans and how we can support them is very important. Being a part of this group has given me a different perspective of the challenges that veterans face on a day-to-day basis, and what we can do to help. The BRG supports and encourages allyship, where colleagues can join and be a part of BRGs and initiatives that support identities that they do not hold. So this is one of the things that I am doing. I just need to get a better understanding of how we can support our veterans.
Logan Hickman:Yeah, that's great and so important. Thanks, Heather. How about you, Jim?
Jim Nickens:It may sound like an oversimplification, but inclusivity is in our DNA. At InSource, as a smaller, independently owned firm, we don't have the resources of many BISAmembers, but we have started to lean heavily on shared resources I have acquired through our DE&I Committee. I've also connected with other firms in the financial services industry who have freely shared the fruits of their labor to frame where we currently reside in DE&I support. It all starts with our culture. It originated with our founder and continued when I joined InSource. It has always been inclusive at InSource. It goes beyond supporting our team members to be their authentic selves. We regularly review our outward-facing activities, such as speakers we recruit to present at our advisor events, social media and our charitable dollars we place back into the Indianapolis area to ensure these activities match with our core values.
Logan Hickman:Yeah, that's so important, and I appreciate you sharing that Jim and those initiatives sound very valuable. I'm curious if you know the process for starting these and specifically how your organizations ensure that they continue. How do we also ensure that they stay successful? So Jim, we'll start with you on this one.
Jim Nickens:Thanks, Logan. Although I do not have quantifiable way to measure the impact of our inclusive workplace, I would like to take a moment to talk about one of the most important starting points for a firm of our size. Everything starts with the composition of our leadership team. In my years in the business and time at multiple organizations, I've witnessed the powerful message a diverse leadership team sends, both internally and externally. The spidering effect of a diverse leadership team is that it helps establish and build trust with different people throughout the organization. At InSource, our embrace of diverse backgrounds, experiences and cultures is at the core of who we are as an organization. Research has shown that diverse leadership teams tend to outperform their homogeneous counterparts.
Logan Hickman:Awesome. And how about you, Heather?
Heather Hepburn:Business resource groups are voluntary, employee-led groups that are created to foster an inclusive environment where colleagues feel safe and respected and can be their authentic self. We have eight BRGs, and what is great is that they are fully supported by our senior management team. Each BRG has an executive chair and an executive ally. There is also full CEO support, as well as budgetary support. It is very important to have that level of support, with that level of engagement. There is a high level of success. For example, the Webster Women's Network has over 400 members. The Pride BRG has over 150 members. The African and Caribbean BRG has over 75, and enrollment in each of these groups is growing. Colleagues are not limited to participate in just one particular BRG. They're encouraged to get involved in as many as they like to. This will give them a broader knowledge of each group.
Logan Hickman:I think that's so important and so well said, Heather and Jim. I appreciate you sharing your insights on that, and I can just share from personal experience, I'm involved with a couple employee resource groups at Nationwide. So I love hearing how other financial institutions are promoting DE&I initiatives, even when their value is sometimes questioned today. And so I know at my organization, Nationwide, DE&I continues to be very important. One event that has inspired me is the Diversity in Wholesaling Summit, which helps wholesalers feel more engaged and connected, while giving leaders insights, including how to bring more diverse talent into our sales force. So at Nationwide, this event was initially started by Rona Guyman, who is the head of annuity distribution at my firm. She's actually also a BISA member and a leader I'm continually inspired by. So getting into details, I'm curious if you both could share when and where DE&I initiatives have had a positive impact on employees at your firm. I think it's important today to show the ROI, so to speak, for employees, in order to show the value of these programs continuing. So Heather, I'll actually start with you on this one.
Heather Hepburn:In a recent conversation with a colleague, she mentioned that being a part of the BRG gave her a sense of belonging. She felt seen, she felt heard. She found a place where she could be her authentic self. At Webster, we added the B for belonging. So it's d, e, i, b. Belonging means that there is a sense of security and support for all. Colleagues feel valued and respected, which I think is extremely important. When I asked my friend who is a part of a BRG what the best thing about being a part of the BRG is, she said, It's just being a part of a community. Just being a part of this community has given her the exposure that she hasn't had in the past. She received recognition, exposure and access to tools and experiences that she normally wouldn't have had without being a part of the BRG.
Logan Hickman:I love that. I love adding the B for belonging. Jim, how about you?
Jim Nickens:Same here, Logan. I think B is in a very important part, and something we'll need to look at moving forward as well. Over at inSource, we have found our makeup adds to the trust and richness of our relationships in the broader market. Additionally, the makeup of our staff was a huge advantage during the pandemic. We found that our existing supportive culture was up to the challenge of remaining competitive and profitable during the pandemic. We found our team was able to reset and interact successfully, exchange information and offer their talent and support of each other after a period of refining our new normal. The resulting synergy resulted in better decision making, quicker problem solving and higher quality of work, all of which favorably affected our reputation and results.
Logan Hickman:That's awesome. And I have an example I'd like to share as well. So I lead the Scottsdale campus of Nationwide's Pride Employee Resource Group. Oftentimes this employee resource group actually provides a safer space for folks to be their true selves, even more so than they can experience at home. I've met some people who've actually come out for the first time to follow Nationwideers, even before family members, because of the safety and community that our Employee Resource Group offers them. So along those lines, DE&I programs also make an impact beyond employees. They can impact our businesses, the communities we serve and our customers. Can you both share any examples? And Jim, I'll start with you on this one. So well said. How about you, Heather?
Jim Nickens:Great. thanks. Logan. I love commenting on this, because we are not alone in our size in the BISA family. We don't have the resources of larger organizations. However, the intent is to continue to grow our internal deliverables for our team and then codify our commitment to diversity.
Heather Hepburn:At Webster, our strategies are based on the Research demonstrates that diverse teams are more likely to provide creative solutions and groundbreaking concepts. The increased innovation may result in new strategies or services, enhanced operational procedures and a better market advantage. We believe diversity essentially encourages innovation, which in turn promotes profitability. For instance, businesses like Apple, Google and Microsoft have prioritized diversity in the workplaces and often launched groundbreaking goods and services that appeal to a worldwide clientele. Both their market share and profitability have considerably risen during these advances. To tie it all together, at InSource, diversity has provided access to new business prospects. It is simpler to comprehend and accommodate a wider variety of
three Cs:colleagues, clients and community. We attract and customer demands and preferences when a company's workforce reflects the diversity of its clientele retain diverse colleagues throughout the bank. We focus on the diverse supply of people and focus on things that we can do to support our communities, like volunteerism. When clients walk into our banking centers and see us celebrating the different events, they recognize our commitment to the diversity of our clients and the communities in which we live and serve. They will want to come to do business with us, because they feel comfortable working with us, and they feel valued. And if our colleagues feel valued and feel a sense of belonging, they will want to continue to work with the bank. As a result of our DEIB efforts, we have added new clients to the bank, and we have been able to provide evidence of ROI. We have also received national recognition for our DEIB program and efforts.
Logan Hickman:I think that's awesome, and it's all about how you bring additional folks in. One thing I'll speak briefly about that we're doing at Nationwide is Nationwide's retirement Institute, which is essentially like an internal retirement Think Tank. It has what's called its diverse markets thought leadership program, and within that program, we put out thought leadership to empower FAs to reach out to diverse communities, to try to bring in new folks to our space and to our industry. So super proud to have that as part of the firm that I represent. So, for our final question for the day, I want to mention the changing environment, specifically, how has your firm's DE&I strategy changed with the introduction and continuation of remote and hybrid work post pandemic? So Heather, I'm going to toss this one first to you.
Heather Hepburn:In addition to having to pivot during the pandemic, our bank merged with another bank, and we now have colleagues working in many different states. Before the pandemic, we all had to go into the office. Now there is a different level of flexibility and different remote schedules for colleagues. There is more flexibility with our work schedules, and we've implemented new collaboration software like Teams and Zoom and WebEx to collaborate and ensure business as usual. We have a remote pillar as part of all of our BRGs that focuses on engaging fully remote colleagues. Most of our programming has shifted to hybrid to support all colleagues regardless of location, so they can easily access all events.
Logan Hickman:That's great. How about you guys at InSource? Jim?
Jim Nickens:Great final question. Our approach to DEI, and we're going to add B after the conversation today, is that it is business common sense. It has been commonplace since our inception. The challenges of the remote employee model has not changed in the way we support, value and show appreciation to our employees. Fortunately, pre-pandemic, we had years of experience supporting remote work and hybrid schedules, so any impact to our workplace, expectation and challenges had been minimal, and we could not attribute that to our DEI commitment.
Logan Hickman:I think that's great, Jim. With hybrid and remote work at Nationwide considered, we've actually had to be more intentional to meet people where they're at as well, and to get more people involved in our ERGs, we've had to implement a personal touch. So one thing that I do before our events is I'll reach out to people who RSVPed for the event one on one, just to make sure they're still attending. So, in conclusion, thank you both for taking the time today to weigh in on this subject Spreading awareness of the value of diverse teams within the financial services industry is something we strive to do on the BISA DE&I Committee, and it's an honor to serve with the both of you.
Jim Nickens:Thank you Logan, thank you, Heather.
Heather Hepburn:Thank you, Logan, thank you, Jim. Yes, pleasure to be here today.
Logan Hickman:I appreciate you both. So again, I want to remind our listeners to please subscribe and share this podcast if you find it valuable. Have a great day, everybody.