By Bruce Farr
Ben Alvarado is on a mission.
As executive vice president and director of Core Banking for California Bank & Trust, Alvarado is mounting a dedicated campaign to further champion the practice of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) throughout the bank’s wide range of enterprise in California.
That mission is a timely and important one. As a corporate practice, DEI has gained considerable momentum over the past few years. There’s been widespread — and increasing — recognition that innovation in business has many of its roots in diversity of thought and experience.
Why DEI matters
Although the idea of promoting diversity in business organizations has been in practice for quite some time, the widespread growth of this discipline has truly evolved into a core business function at many innovation-focused organizations. Especially in the past few years, DEI’s evolution into a wholly realized department within corporate governance has blossomed.
DEI’s increasing prevalence and practice is fully understandable, especially in light of its impact on companies’ and organizations’ output. A 2020 report by McKinsey & Company demonstrated how organizations with gender- and ethnically diverse leaders and employees innovate at a faster rate than their counterparts. The study showed decisively that diversity of thought fuels new product development and generates opportunity for all. Likewise, an article in the esteemed Harvard Business Review points out that in every company they reviewed, diverse teams were far more innovative, particularly those that promote cultural diversity.
Making an impact
That “cultural diversity” factor is one that Alvarado particularly embraces, because he’s lived it. Raised in a Hispanic home but in an Anglo neighborhood, he says that he was “singled out” for his ethnicity as a child. “I was sort of a kid and young adult without an island,” he explains. “I was never ‘Mexican’ enough for some, but then not ‘white’ enough for others. That experience has made me infinitely curious about others, and led to my enjoyment of hearing their different ideas, thoughts and perspectives. My sense is that everyone has a story, and it’s important to create spaces where people can confidently and safely share those stories.”
Further building the DEI program at CB&T is a critical goal of Alvarado’s mission.“[The] first objective for an organization that embraces DEI is to create awareness of it,” he says. “What is DEI and why is it important? I want people to understand its impact on our lives and business, and promote openness and willingness to learn about that impact.”
Once employees know what DEI is, Alvarado says the next question to answer is how the practice of it will impact the business.
“People in the organization ask, ‘Now that I know what [DEI] is, where do I, personally, fit into it?’ We need to create a safe space to reassure people as to why it would be so valuable to have them sit in on or lead a diverse group, whether it’s diverse in its cultural makeup, gender or any other. When we all bring each other’s perspectives into the mix, that’s when the magic happens, and we see real progress in DEI.”
As important as DEI is internally to any organization, its practice also offers the company a competitive advantage in the marketplace, Alvarado points out.
“It really gives a huge advantage competitively,” he says. “Especially since COVID, people have taken the time to reflect on who they are — who they work for, what their organizations are all about, and what is their purpose in life. These considerations have become even more important now, as people are looking for different jobs and changing lines of business. As an employer, focusing on this type of work [DEI] and letting people know that it matters helps turn a business into an employer of choice.”
For example, at CB&T, one of the bank’s main expressions of DEI policy is its budding Small Business Diversity Banking Program. In short, the program provides loan credit to women, minority and veteran-owned businesses.
“This program expands the credit box that we look at in our loan decision-making process,” Alvarado explains. “The parameters that guide us in these decisions are expanded somewhat. So, if they happen not to qualify under the standard regulations, this box under the Small Business Diversity program helps re-evaluate their application under a new lens.”
Community outreach
Not only is Alvarado working to help generate diverse cultural awareness among CB&T employees, but he is also taking his passionate advocacy of the DEI concept into the community. He’s proud to be spearheading a handful of community outreach programs that help promote and extend diversity awareness issues in the California communities the bank serves.
“One of the programs that I’m incredibly proud of is called Cultures United,” he says. “It’s an Orange County community-based forum in which community leaders speak on a variety of topics. The bank was the founding—and sole—sponsor of this program two years ago, and we’ve been using it to create conversations in the community.”
In fact, Alvarado is a chair of Cultures United. Administered under the United Way umbrella, the program is designed to promote conversation, collaboration, philanthropy and unity in the community, all of which is informed and motivated by diversity, equity and inclusion. One of the latest such Cultures United efforts featured a two-part program celebrating the past, present and future of Black History Month and Women’s History Month.
“Over the past 12 months, we’ve been getting out in front of a lot of boards that we sit on, and organizations that we volunteer on,” Alvarado says. “Again, it’s all about promoting awareness of these programs in the community. That’s a major thrust of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
On the horizon
Alvarado has a vision for the future of DEI at the bank. Among many plans, he talks enthusiastically about implementing an Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) into the CB&T culture.
“It’s really a way to assess the awareness and sensitivity of cultural differences and similarities in an organization,” he explains. “For example, you may not think you have any biases, but when we do an IDI, it helps to expose some aspects of our beliefs or behavior that we might not have been aware of. It helps us answer how culturally competent are we, and how much to do we want to be.”
Alvarado makes clear the benefits of these employee resource groups. “By promoting a rich culture of diversity in the workplace, it can help teams to be more creative and productive in their work—all while engaging in a lot more interesting conversations,” he notes.