Championing Gender Equality: Insights with Award Judge Noam Handler
Mar 18, 2024Season 17Episode 2
powered by Northern Power Women
Noam Handler, from our headline partner EY, joins us for a Northern Power Women Awards Special!
As EY sponsor our awards for the 4th consecutive year, Noam shares what this partnership means to him and EY as an organisation.
Noam explores the importance of allyship and advocacy in creating a more inclusive space in the male-dominated finance industry.
Listen to learn: 🎙️How EY promotes equality throughout their organisation 🎙️All about the NPW Awards 🎙️How we can make the finance industry more inclusive 🎙️The partnership between EY and We Are Power
You can now nominate for the 2025 Northern Power Women Awards to be in with a chance of celebrating with changemakers, trailblazers and advocates on 6th March 2025! Nominate now at wearepower.net
Sign up to our Power Platform to check out our events calendar here.
Noam Handler, from our headline partner EY, joins us for a Northern Power Women Awards Special!
As EY sponsor our awards for the 4th consecutive year, Noam shares what this partnership means to him and EY as an organisation.
Noam explores the importance of allyship and advocacy in creating a more inclusive space in the male-dominated finance industry.
Listen to learn: 🎙️How EY promotes equality throughout their organisation 🎙️All about the NPW Awards 🎙️How we can make the finance industry more inclusive 🎙️The partnership between EY and We Are Power
You can now nominate for the 2025 Northern Power Women Awards to be in with a chance of celebrating with changemakers, trailblazers and advocates on 6th March 2025! Nominate now at wearepower.net
Sign up to our Power Platform to check out our events calendar here.
The Northern Power Women Podcast For your career and your life, no matter what business you're in. Hello and welcome to the we Are Power Podcast. This is the podcast that is all about highlighting role models, advocates, sharing those inspiring personal and professional stories with you, and what we want to do is bring some of their top tips, advice, guidance, whatever it is that may help you, whether it be on your career or your life. So let us meet. This week's guest is the wonderfully supportive, excellent and also going to be absent at the Northern Power Women Awards, I've just heard but the partner at EUI, noah Mandler. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, and thank you for having me Delighted to be here.
Speaker 1:
You're always such a good supporter. You came on the how to Waste nominations webinar last year just in advance of our nominations. You've also been a judge now for, I think, three years. I think.
Speaker 2:
This is my third year.
Speaker 1:
yes, it is no mean feat, is it? That's for sure.
Speaker 2:
No, it's an amazing experience to do, but you then realise it's time consuming in a very good way.
Speaker 1:
Yes, in a good way, I think. I always love that, because when you try to explain the process and I always love it when we bring back our winners from previous years and they realise that oh my goodness, is this how you spoke about me? But then they get right into it as well, don't they?
Speaker 2:
Yes, and I think it's one of those. Well also, we talked about it last time you see the quality of the nominations and that actually becomes really difficult because you think how am I supposed to differentiate between all the great things that all the nominees have done?
Speaker 1:
Yes, and one of the interesting things one of the exciting things this year as well is we are opening for nominations. In fact, nominations are open the day after the awards this year because we want to be able to expand so it doesn't just fall into a six-week block, it's keeping it going all year round and we've always talked about the awards not being for one night. It's not just one night a dinner. You've been in the room, but this is something I know that's been quite important, that when we talk about having partners and you are again our headline partners for the Northern Powering Awards it is about a partnership. It's not just about coming for this really lovely, which is a lovely, swanky evening and fabulous gala and everything, but it's very uplifting. But why is it important for you? Because I know you're someone who has really got behind what we do.
Speaker 2:
I suppose, a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's from a community and a local the North perspective. It's important for us to be involved in what we think is a great event. But, going back to the thing around, it's not just about the event. It reflects the values that we have as a firm.
Speaker 2:
It's so important for us to make sure that we are creating a culture of equality, be it gender, be it ethnic diversity, and that's exactly what Northern Power Women is about. It's trying to celebrate, firstly, the great things that women are doing and also male allies, but also with an ultimate purpose of actually I mean, ultimately, you want to get to a point where, in the future, you don't need the awards because actually everything's equal and you don't need to shout it out. But it reflects some of the things that we do internally, which is we have to have things like Northern Power Women so that we carry on talking about the need for equality, because if you don't have that continual drumbeat, we haven't got to where we need to get to. So without that continued drum beat, we won't get there.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and I think it's interesting what you said, that I always think that one of the purposes of me setting up what I do and why I do is almost to do myself out of a job, really, because you almost want to create that ripple effect that people do. But you talked about allies and advocacy, and this year we've got our. We've created our very first advocacy list. We've always we've had our power list or future list. I don't know how, if I'm honest, how it's taken so long for us to have that, because the awards have always been open to all genders, that's always been met, really, really important. But it sort of just came on the back of last year's and having a conversation. It's like, well, actually, why don't we create this sort of a new community, if you like, and how do we create this cohort of allies that then we can almost act as a mirror effect, if you like, so that we can attract more allies? And why is it so important, do you think that, for allies to be part of this wider conversation around gender equality?
Speaker 2:
I mean, it's a really. It's a really interesting one. You could look at it on the one hand and say I bet if you, if you and you're, you would have got to know all of your allies. On the one hand, they may say I'm just doing what everyone should do, like I'm just I'm just doing. Some of them will say I don't, why do I need to be, why do I need to have a light shun on me for being an ally? I'm just doing what is the right thing, because if I believe in equality, why, why wouldn't I support everyone? And then it does go back to point I made before, which is that that that is definitely true, but I was in the assumption that everyone's doing that. And actually what you need is you need to call out those really positive role models so that people then realize over time actually this shouldn't be something that we need to call out, but we do. But we need to show that if everyone acted in this way, we wouldn't need any of this in a way. But that that's why it's a real. It's a real.
Speaker 2:
You get torn between a really positive ally saying this is what I do, I'm not. I'm not the yes on from one perspective, they're making loads of effort, but actually in reality, they just say I'm just doing, I'm just acting like a normal human being. But that's unfortunately why we keep on having to call it out. And we know we'll have it as part of the International Women's Day. One of the awards will always be similar, will always be male ally shit. And you do find exactly the same debates like why do I need to be called out? Well, you need to be called out because you're making the assumption that everyone else is acting like you and they're not. So we need to call it out so that I like to say five years or 10 years, but in 20 years, no one understands why you needed to have this.
Speaker 1:
And it's interesting. We did an event back in the autumn time and the event was in front of a group of male colleagues a big corporate organization, but from the first five years of their careers, for the first five years at this organization, and what was really interesting there was that, well, why are we even having this conversation? Surely this is what, like you said, that we should be doing anyway. So I think there's an element of learning from that future generation, if you like as well, isn't it? That's really key. What would you throw as that top tip? You've kind of given some, you've ordered Luger to something, but what was some of that advice you would give to other male allies out there about how to be the best advocate that they could be?
Speaker 2:
I mean there's two levels A base level it's just not necessarily work, just treat everyone the same. And that's in a funny way when you probably speak, if I speak to my so I've got four boys ages 16 to 25. And I think if we have this conversation, some of them and it's partly the way they've been brought I wouldn't understand it They'll say, yes, of course we act that way. So a base level act that way, but I think that you do. In a way, part of the benefit of your awards this year is you've got a group of male allies because, depending on what you like in a work context, sometimes you may need a level of seniority or support so that you, so you can say, actually I'm going to call this out, I'm going to call things out, I'm going to vocally stand up and make sure that where I think that from an ethnic minority perspective, from a gender perspective, things on equal, I'm going to call it out. Thank you. You.
Speaker 2:
And some people will just be really, really brave and just shout it out. But there'll be other people who are more of you know, quiet leaders or a bit uncertain, especially if they're not necessarily settled in their role. Use things like this, or look around and see who the other male allies are, because if you feel that you can't quite say something, there will be in every organisation other people like you who want to do more or are doing more. So reach out to them, even if that gives you a comfort blanket not necessarily to learn. And I think the other thing is if you've got people who think I need to know who the other male allies are or do I do the right thing, so just care on doing the right thing. The mere fact that people are thinking, oh, now I think I do this, that's a positive in itself.
Speaker 1:
So just, we're talking about your industry and sectors, which is far reaching across the world of you know, professional services over the over the sort of decades has been quite male dominated. I don't think it's much so now. It's definitely looking better in 2024, isn't it?
Speaker 2:
Definitely looking better. And if I started work right, the right, the end of right begin now I suppose, 1996. So I mean the change has been huge but there's still a long way to go. And if you look at, if you look at our firm as an example, now I suppose a benchmark that we put out is a percentage of female partners, and so every year we improve it. And I think last year 36, 37% of new partners were female. So in terms of percentage of partners we've still got a bit of a way to go. I think we're still about just under 30%, but clearly is a long way to go. But I think, and I think if you look back over time, we've improved and proved and proved.
Speaker 2:
But my personal view is that it's still taking a long time for that improvement to come through. And if you go all the way down to the people who are coming in a sort of trainee level, especially from a gender perspective, we're roughly 50-50. And so for us it's not, it's more around. What do we need to do? Because I think when I started work it was very, very male dominated, so you couldn't really say right in the next five years because you still had to, you still had a bit of a way to go to progress things through. For us, it's about how do we make sure that if we start a 50-50, everyone has an equal opportunity to get promoted in the way they want to get promoted, so that we can hit.
Speaker 2:
And again, from a gender perspective, it's quite easy to say it should be 50-50, because it's like an easy one. So there's an improvement and there's a continuing improvement. But I think that We've got a way to go. And the question is do I think as an industry, we'll get there? Yes, but I think that without continued effort we won't get there quick enough. So, and that's the point I think the point is is that every year we do better and across industry we do better. But the question is do we wanna get there in 20 years time, or do we wanna get there in 10 years time, or do we wanna get there in five years time? And that's the reason why all this is important and that's the reason why it's a continual focus and should be a continual focus in all organizations.
Speaker 1:
It should announce. I think what you're talking about it's that progress, not perfection. And also, nobody is there. No one are they? Nobody is there. And I think the decades I've been working around equity, inclusion, gender equality, social, all of that Nobody is there. Because we have to keep shifting and keep moving and be aware and be curious and keep learning, don't we? I think we all have, even the biggest organizations, like yourselves. We just gotta keep learning. And also that knowledge exchange is really key as well what we can learn off smaller organizations, bigger organizations. I think that's because, like the younger guys I talked about sort of earlier, who were kind of, why are we even doing this? I think it's that learning from our future gen, as well as the very those who are kind of you know, sort of on the finish their careers and you know, so we don't have that knowledge or we don't lose that knowledge exchange. I think it's really important. We just gotta keep learning.
Speaker 2:
And a lot for us when we're so. I have a DNI role and national DNI role in the firm as well, and I think a lot of it is asking people to share their lived experiences of why. Because I think that and again, maybe in my industry you know this is maybe on the male side people go into solution mode too quickly and actually you need to step back and you need to ask people how they feel and ask people what can we do, and even things like you need to break down those assumptions around. Why are we not at 50-50? And it's not part of it is about equity of outcome, but part of it is also about people make different choices, people do different things and actually people want different things. But the only way you really understand it is by listening to other people.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and I think, is that that's one of the things that's come out of me throughout this whole piece of that curiosity. Isn't it having that curiosity? What are the directives? And that's a very formal word, doesn't it? But what are the things that you are most proud of?
Speaker 2:
So something that we have so in, I think, in most of the big professional firms to make partner. It's quite a brutal process and you go through a you know it's a process that's evolved, keeps on evolving over the years, and actually something that we implemented as a leadership team is actually making sure that a process that's Whilst it evolves, it still has, it still looks for certain attributes, that we've got one-to-one sponsorship, for example, of female candidates or, I think, minority candidates, just to ensure that they feel that they can be, that they feel that they've got a base layer. And I think part of the reason is that I think that, for example, a lot of the male candidates, based on their own attributes, will reach out and find their own sponsor. So actually it's making sure and I think that has made quite a big difference in my part of the business in terms of making sure that people feel sponsored, people feel supported. I think that's quite, from a very, very senior perspective, that's been a really positive impact.
Speaker 2:
Something else that we've implemented is actually, whenever we have our performance reviews, our roundtables, at the end we've made sure that we have what we call inclusion champions in every one. So it's supposed to be an independent person who's just there to make sure that, from a pure diversity perspective, there is a level playing field across everyone. And actually that very, very rapidly had an impact, even to the extent that even now, when people know that they're there, they don't. They actually you've got to put where they are subconsciously thinking about it all the time. So again, that's a very I think that was a very positive directive that we did. That actually had a far quicker impact than any of us expected.
Speaker 1:
And I think that's one of the things that one of the biggest improvements that you have noticed in that really active promotion of wider diversity.
Speaker 2:
The fact is, it's a constant agenda point. It never goes away, and that's part of it is that you want to get to the point where it's part and parcel of the culture. D&i is part and parcel of the culture and therefore, whether that's around how do we allocate work? Whether that's around how do we build our teams, whether that's around giving people equal opportunities, you need to have lots and lots of small interventions rather than one big, grand, fancy target, because there's a small interventions that will get people to think about it day to day, so that so for me, you can't point to one, because there probably would never be one thing.
Speaker 1:
And I think that is the perfect way to kind of sum up, I think, is the small. I always think it's the sum of all those small things, the sum of all the small parts that make up to the big things. That's what sports teams use, don't they across the world as the kind of the one millimeter T that all add up. It's not the. Sometimes we all go for the big, hairy, audacious goal, if you like, and then you know, and then we do it, and then it's like, oh right, okay, how do we keep that going? So I think my top tips from here. We said we were going to give some top tips here, so it is absolutely about the small things. It's about to keep doing, keep doing, keep being inquisitive and keep learning. I think other things, no. Thank you so much for being a gem and a wisdom as ever.
Speaker 2:
I'm sorry, I'm not with you on Monday.
Speaker 1:
Yes, well, you know you are forgiven this time, but don't forget you'll be joining us on the live stream. Thank you so much and a best of luck to everyone for the 2024 awards this year. Thank you so much for the ongoing support from EY as our headline sponsors of the largest event celebrating gender equality in Europe. Let us go wild on socials and share the love for everything that is fabulous out there. Thank you so much, noel.
Speaker 2:
Have pleasure.
Speaker 1:
And thank you all of you for joining us on the podcast. We love your comments, we love your feedback. Stay connected on all of our socials and do leave a review. You can do that Old school type things up, press post. We love all that. And stay everything that we've got going on and on everything around the awards and everything around our mentoring. Please stay connected on our digital hub. We are Powertnet. Thank you all so much for your support. My name is Simone. This is the we Are Power podcast and what goes on media production.