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Speaker 1: It is August. In Bloomberg Markets magazine, they are out

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Speaker 1: with a special issue. It is focused on diversity, where

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Speaker 1: black men and women they share their experience on Wall Street.

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Speaker 1: There's no universal experience, but their stories reflect what it's

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Speaker 1: like in what it means to be just one of

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Speaker 1: a handful of black people in finance. Bloomberg Radio and

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Speaker 1: Television correspondence Hinney Bassik contributed to the Bloomberg Markets issue

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Speaker 1: and brings us more in this special report. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to define the black experience on Wall Street, partially because

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Speaker 1: there are so few people of color in the c

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Speaker 1: suite and on trading floors across the industry. At the

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Speaker 1: beginning of this year, there were more than eighty top

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Speaker 1: executives at the six biggest US banks, and only one

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Speaker 1: was black. We interviewed people across the industry. Carla Harris,

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Speaker 1: who has since become one of the most senior women

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Speaker 1: at Morgan Stanley, was one of the few people of

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Speaker 1: color at the firm in the eighties. Excellence look like

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Speaker 1: six white men at the top, right. That wasn't strange

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Speaker 1: at all. That's what you saw at IBM. That's what

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Speaker 1: you saw a GM. That's what you saw at Morgan

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Speaker 1: Stanley Goldman's actually pick it right. So you knew that

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Speaker 1: if you wanted to play on this playing field, that's

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Speaker 1: was what you were You were going to have to

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Speaker 1: be comfortable in some cases being the only and and

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Speaker 1: being the first. So that was not intimidating to me

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Speaker 1: at all. That's just the way it was, you know.

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Speaker 1: I would say I had three strikes against me. Here's

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Speaker 1: what I said to myself as the first year and

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Speaker 1: second year associate. I said, You've got three strikes against you.

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Speaker 1: You're young, you're a woman, and you're black. Reggie Brown

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Speaker 1: was also alone when he became the first African American

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Speaker 1: Exchange official in the nineties. I've always saw race as

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Speaker 1: an attribute because I realized that a lot of times

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Speaker 1: I was the only one in the room or I

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Speaker 1: stood out because I was six five a black dude,

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Speaker 1: and everyone remarked to that because it was such a

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Speaker 1: unique thing to be um in environment that I was in.

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Speaker 1: And so I think through ambition and talent and drive,

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Speaker 1: I created my opportunities. Many of the people we interviewed

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Speaker 1: said they felt systematically shut out of wall streets tight

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Speaker 1: knit circle. Sometimes that sentiment was even overt. There was

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Speaker 1: some recognition I think of my talents, but also you

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Speaker 1: know just where I stood in a hierarchy. You know,

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Speaker 1: I remember when I first came remember the Stock Exchange.

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Speaker 1: I sat the members lounge and a ninety year old

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Speaker 1: member of the Exchange I didn't believe I belonged there,

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Speaker 1: and cleared his throat and told me to go. That

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Speaker 1: was in the nineties. More than a decade later, Lauren

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Speaker 1: Simmons was only the second black woman to become a

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Speaker 1: trader at the New York Stock Exchange. That's in the

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Speaker 1: two five year history of the trading floor. Before she

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Speaker 1: passed her Series nineteen exam, the men and around her

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Speaker 1: bed that she wouldn't even make it through the test.

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Speaker 1: The archive is getting to bea you realized or the

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Speaker 1: second half of American woman in history. And this wasn't

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Speaker 1: true interest about gear to be to myself like wow,

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Speaker 1: this is a story moment, but it is very better.

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Speaker 1: See that there, you know, barched more woman. They came

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Speaker 1: before me. There's been some change over time, but it's

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Speaker 1: coming fits and starts. For Carla, that ship started in

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Speaker 1: the nineties, but she saw many people of color laid

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Speaker 1: off and hard times for the industry. We have made

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Speaker 1: some progress, because it used to be so knowledge that

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Speaker 1: I could name every person on Wall Street, let alone

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Speaker 1: every senior person on Wall Street. And I am happy

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Speaker 1: to say that I cannot do that today. So by definition,

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Speaker 1: we've made some progress. The reason why I think we

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Speaker 1: aren't farther along in financial services bly and certainly Wall

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Speaker 1: Street particularly, is that I feel that diversity has been

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Speaker 1: a bullmarket phenomenon. When things are going really well, then

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Speaker 1: people are focused on it. And then when you have

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Speaker 1: a bear market environment, you have restructurings, you have reductions

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Speaker 1: and force and obviously small populations are disproportionately hit. And

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Speaker 1: then when we get back into an upturn, that's when

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Speaker 1: you look around and you go, oh my gosh, where's

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Speaker 1: my pipeline, And you've got to start all over again.

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Speaker 1: And with the death of George Floyd and protests spanning

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Speaker 1: more than two months, many in Wall Streets black community

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Speaker 1: have been compelled to create change. They're speaking openly about

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Speaker 1: race for the first times in their careers. You know,

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Speaker 1: seeing George Floyd being murdered by a y cop with

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Speaker 1: his hands in his pocket, you know, it's just molly reprehensible.

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Speaker 1: You know, and I think because we're all at home,

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Speaker 1: working at home from COVID, everyone has an opportunity to

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Speaker 1: kind of focus on it. And I think what's different

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Speaker 1: is I think there's more people of color in their

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Speaker 1: agency to speak freely about these issues. Age plays a

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Speaker 1: part too. Laurence is a younger generation hesitant to accept

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Speaker 1: the status quo. She thinks the next wave of talent

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Speaker 1: is unlikely to stay on Wall Street of things don't change.

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Speaker 1: The shift is going to happen with the younger generation

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Speaker 1: is that they're just going to get bet up when

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Speaker 1: traditional Wall Street or traditional maybe Chech spaces or so

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Speaker 1: on and so forth, and they're just going to create

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Speaker 1: your own companies that include everyone. Because I do really

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Speaker 1: believe that the younger generation really gets it. But the

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Speaker 1: road ahead is still a hard one with barriers to entry.

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Speaker 1: You know, Wall Street, you know it's a closed society

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Speaker 1: and you know it's a meritocracy, and it's very hard

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Speaker 1: to get in and stay in, and once you're in,

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Speaker 1: you know, the environment two times is rough and tumble,

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Speaker 1: is not very friendly. But is that true for everything

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Speaker 1: else alive? After almost two dozen interviews with people of

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Speaker 1: color on Wall Street, we found that being black often

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Speaker 1: means being alone, held back, and deprived of the best opportunities.

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Speaker 1: Some made it to the top, some left disenchanted. Some

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Speaker 1: became rich. Some were so underpaid they had to sue.

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Speaker 1: Some think Wall Street is hopeless, but some are more

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Speaker 1: optimistic than ever. In New York, Um Shinneli Bassk Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Radio