Investing in diversity: How public companies can promote inclusivity

Betty Liu, Executive Vice Chairman for NYSE Group, provides her perspective:

What role does diversity play in investing?

So, diversity has played an increasingly important role in investing. In an earlier episode, I talked about ESG - that's environmental, social and governance - and ESG factoring more into investment decisions. Diversity is a key component of ESG. It's seen as crucial in looking at good governance and good decision making. So, a growing number of investors are looking at diversity as a metric to show whether or not this company is worthy to invest in.

What are public companies doing to advance diversity today?

As you all have seen in the last several weeks, there has been an increasing focus on diversity and companies have come out and reaffirmed their commitment to diversity and also pledging to do better. So, some of those commitments include looking at pay equity as well as opportunities for advancement, real opportunities for advancement. One of the things we're doing at the New York Stock Exchange and I'm very proud of, is reform the NYSE Board Advisory Council, whose mission is to improve diversity on public and private company boards. We help our listed companies find and place diverse board candidates.