Risk Cooperative Chief Revenue Officer, Les Williams, is honored to participate in a Black History Month event, hosted by Gallagher to Ring the New York Stock Exchange Closing Bell.
Just seven months ago, Risk Cooperative obtained our CRMSDC MBE Certification and began our journey to help companies meet supplier diversity goals with Tier 1 risk and insurance solutions. At that time, Chief Revenue Officer and Co-Founder, Les Williams, noted, “Our team specializes in helping businesses build operational resiliency, and in our experience, diverse perspectives are critical to effective risk management – the public good, inclusivity, and business success are not in conflict.”
While the insurance industry, and much of financial services, lags behind in diversity and inclusion, there are some organizations doing good work to make improvements. The Gallagher Connect Partner program enables independent MBE brokerages, like Risk Cooperative, to amplify our supplier diversity capabilities while providing clients with solutions to increase their diverse spend. The New York Stock Exchange launched the Board Advisory Council in 2019 to address the critical need for diverse, inclusive leadership on public and private company boards, believing categorically that “if the leading companies of today plan to be the leading companies of tomorrow, they will need diversity at the very top,” writes Elizabeth King, President, ICE ESG & Chief Regulatory Officer at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). As Risk Cooperative Chairman, Dante Disparte wrote in Risk Management Magazine under the title Pale, Stale and Male: Does Board Diversity Matter? in 2018, “The role of the board must evolve beyond check-the-box compliance and move to embrace a holistic and integrated strategic oversight of ESG, enterprise risk management, leadership and culture. An essential part of achieving this objective is to have a properly diversified board.”
On February 23, these threads came together as our friends at AJ Gallagher rang the New York Stock Exchange Closing Bell, with our own Les Williams in attendance to represent Risk Cooperative as a member of the Gallagher ConnectPartner network. To honor the occasion, Flutterwave Founder & CEO, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola rang the NYSE Closing Bell at the BlackHistoryMonth event. Since 2016, the fastgrowing fintech firm has become one of Africa’s highest-valued unicorns, a payment infrastructure connecting African businesses to the global economy. As Flutterwave harnesses an opportunity for exponential growth in emerging markets, they’re also committed to creating greater financial inclusion – one of Risk Cooperative’s core interests.
WATCH CLOSING BELL:
Olugbenga Agboola Rings the Closing Bell
SUPPLIER DIVERSITY RESOURCE LIBRARY:
PRESS RELEASE: MINORITY CERTIFICATION
CAPABILITIES DOCUMENT
SUPPLIER DIVERSITY PROGRAM
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