The first- and second-year students attended two days of workshops and interactions with professionals during the inaugural chapter of the Future Fund Managers Programme, which is being run by 10X in partnership with Tsiba Business School and Asisa Academy.
“Transformation in the financial services industry is a topic that companies often engage in only when it’s trending,” says Khwezi Jackson, Employee Benefits Consultant at 10X Investments, who is a driving force in the team that is running the programme. He believes that the industry is “long overdue for tangible and sustainable action”.
Students from Cape Town’s Tsiba Business School participated the programme. They spent their first day at the Asisa Academy, an independent business school offering high quality learning solutions delivered by experts in various areas of financial services.
On the second day, the students spent time with various team leaders and other professionals at 10X, giving them first-hand experience of the different roles within asset management.
10X is taking a bottom-up approach to contributing to inclusion and diversity in the industry. The Future Fund Managers Programme seeks to increase understanding among black students of the various career paths available in the financial services sector. 10X hopes this will increase the take-up of opportunities by these young people and thereby advance transformation of the sector.
“We know that the demographics in the financial industry are so far from being representative of the demographics in the country,” says Jackson. “At 10X, we believe that if we create a pipeline of young black graduates entering our industry and assist them to develop skills and experience, they will lead the transformation of it.”
Khwezi draws parallels with lack of transformation in sport in South Africa: “You often hear about how we need to start at grassroots level, and that we can’t address transformation at a professional or senior national team level before we have done that.”
He adds: “This is what we are doing with the Future Fund Managers Programme, creating a pipeline of leaders of the future in the financial sector, and assisting them where we can. We hope that they will go on to have successful careers in the financial sector. This will mean transformation from within.”
Feedback from the students was very positive. Most had a new sense of direction after the day networking with professionals working in the industry.
The words of one of the students summed up an interesting and insightful day spent talking to senior professionals: “One of the biggest highlights was speaking to the CFO of the company, who took time off what I assume is a busy schedule to tell us about his role. I had a few questions as to his relationship with the CIO and the distinction between the two roles. He provided me with some clarity on that, and explained how he handles the problem of managing the expectations of shareholders as well as those of the employees of the business.”
Watch the video to hear more feedback from the students:
Jackson adds: “We have not even begun to move the needle on the challenge of diversity and inclusion in the industry. We hope this programme opens up the door for young students and graduates and helps to level the playing field a little.”
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