Diversity and Inclusion at Stifel

In all that we do, Stifel strives for a culture that puts its clients and associates first, a culture where everyone belongs, everyone is welcome, and everyone contributes to the success of our clients, their careers, and the firm as a whole.

Stifel knows that to meet the financial needs of the increasingly diverse and discerning communities we serve, in over 400 locations across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, we must deliver services that accord with the values and preferences of our clients. A diverse team is a critical element of how we find success. Stifel builds on diversity, inclusion, respect, and engagement in all that we do, across the firm.

Creating an inclusive, thriving business is about more than gender and race. Below is a table showing our benchmarks for diversity and inclusion with our U.S.-based Associates.

For prior year data, click here.

Stifel can be proud of what it has accomplished so far, but knows that there is far more to be done. Nothing illustrates the progress possible, and the reasons for pride, better than our growing accomplishments.

In 2017, WIN – Stifel’s Women’s Initiative Network – was established.

Stifel’s Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) was founded in the second half of 2017 to engage and equip women throughout Stifel with the networking and mentoring tools to set and achieve goals in their personal and professional lives. Stifel believes that its clients are best served by professionals who are at their best and fully reflect the communities we serve. WIN is an important part of how Stifel’s professionals are putting that belief into practice. WIN includes:

• Leadership by women in each of Stifel’s major business segments – Wealth Management, Institutional Group, and Home Office.
• Supporting non-profit entities that empower diversity.
• Internships to foster working relationships and expand our workforce diversity.
• Opportunities for Stifel associates to bring daughters and sons to work, exposing the next generation to careers in the financial services industry.
• Empower Magazine, a forum for communication by and within WIN published to the entire firm.

WIN has the enthusiastic support of Stifel’s board and senior executive leadership. Our Board meets with WIN leaders to oversee and encourage the initiative’s progress forward.

Stifel is committed to recruiting and retaining the best talent. That requires us to recruit our talent from a diverse talent pool and invest in them at every stage of their careers. From junior analysts to senior executives, we train, engage, and provide an environment that enables our associates to maximize client results, career growth, and shareholder returns.

Stifel is dedicated to fostering, cultivating, and preserving a culture of diversity and inclusion by embracing and welcoming everyone. Stifel is broadening how and where we recruit the next generation of financial advisors, and has introduced training and dialogue that fosters a culture of inclusion throughout the firm. Stifel is also focused on training current associates to encourage and bring together knowledge, self-expression, and unique competencies throughout the firm at all levels of management.

Stifel is doing more than ever to reach a broader and more diverse applicant pool. Stifel has improved its connection with veterans entering the financial services sector by participating in veteran-focused job fairs and recruitment sites. Stifel has expanded its recruitment in historically black colleges and universities and job sites that are minority focused.

As part of this effort, Stifel also strives to attract a diverse array of interns, summer associates, and summer analysts across its businesses. We implemented the Sophomore Explorers program in 2018 to bring together a diverse group of college students to showcase career opportunities within our firm, and encourage participation in both our internship and early career Institutional Group programs.

Stifel knows that there is much more to be done to improve its ethnic diversity and its diversity across other dimensions. Stifel also knows that our employee benefits package plays a part in bolstering retention, professional development, and personal flourishing. Stifel uses a broad array of information, including the data shared here, in its internal goal-setting for improving ethnic, gender, lifestyle, and other diversity factors.

Our diversity and inclusion efforts include lunches and training to encourage everyone at Stifel to increase the diversity and inclusiveness of the teams within our firm. Diversity of race, religion, sexual origin, gender identity, age, and disability are discussed, in their business and historical context. Inclusion, respect, and equity are embraced. For several years, Stifel has also required all employees to participate in periodic training to promote diversity and prevent workplace harassment, which includes discussion of employee and manager responsibility for fostering diversity and preventing discrimination and stereotyping, unconscious bias, best practices, confidential reporting of problems, and developments in legal and social context.

Leadership is indispensable to promote diversity and inclusion.

Stifel’s senior leadership, both executives and directors, have embraced and accelerated the progress Stifel is making in diversity and inclusion. This leadership has included an ongoing engagement by the board with WIN and other diversity and inclusion initiatives, reports by our CEO to multiple constituencies within the firm as to our challenges and opportunities as we increase our diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to devote firm resources to these efforts.

¹These figures are based on year-end information, and may be rounded to the nearest whole percentage. Ethnicity designations and the terms “executive and senior-level officials and managers” (such as C-level officers), “first/mid-level officials and managers” (such as those directly reporting to C-level officers), and “professionals” (such as employees with professional credentials) are each used as defined by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, such that ethnicity designations other than “Hispanic or Latino” do not include individuals that identify “Hispanic or Latino.”