The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) has announced the 2025 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Advocacy Awards despite several key members of the trading group introducing the DEI program after President Donald Trump's executive order to restore “met-based opportunities.”
Sifma, an outstanding US trade group for securities companies, banks and asset management companies; It was revealed The winner of the annual DEI Award on Tuesday became DEI chief of Yoon-Young Lee at Washington, DC law firm Wilmer Hale.
It's worth noting member Sifma includes Bank of America, Blackrock, Capital One, Citigroup, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo.
President's January 21st Presidential OrderThe title, titled “Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunities,” prohibits private companies, including financial institutions, from implementing DEI employment programs for employment funded by federal contracts.
Late February Bloomberg Report A major change has emerged to the Bank of America (BOA), and sources say the North Carolina-based company no longer has “ambitious” DEI goals. annual Report Released that week, the bank replaced numerous references to “diversity” and “equity,” switching the words between “talent” and “opportunity.”
“We will evaluate and coordinate the program in light of new laws, court decisions, and more recently executive orders from the new administration,” a BOA spokesperson said in a statement to the outlet. “Our goal was to make opportunities available to all our clients, shareholders, teammates and the communities we serve.”
BOA is set to rename the internal “diversity and inclusion” HR group to “opportunity and inclusion,” sources revealed.
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser told staff around the same time that the company's “Diversity, Equity, Inclusive and Human Resource Management” team would be renamed “Human Resource Management and Engagement” and the agency would be renamed Bloomberg, the employment goal of diversity. It has been reported.
middle of February Wall Street Journal article Also revealed that Jpmorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are “deleting or sprinkling” Dei's efforts, while Wells Fargo has begun reviewing the Dei language.
Wall Street Journal It has been reported BlackRock recently deleted a reference to the DEI in its annual report. It's only three years after CEO Larry Fink said the company “have to embed Dei in everything we do.”
That's what Deloitte employees working with US government customers did. Instructions “Variety remains a priority for staff at a London, UK-based company to remove gender pronoun identifiers from email signatures and roll back the DEI programme.” Financial Times It was reported last month ago.
Goldman Sachs also removed the diversity requirements for public companies and reduced the DEI section from the latest annual applicant Reuters It has been reported.
CEO David Solomon said the changes were made to “reflect the development of US law.”
In the case of the capital, whole section It was not since the 2025 release labeled “Diversity, Inclusion, Attribution” in its 2024 annual submission, but the company still has a DEI web page above.
Despite Trump's anti-DEI orders, Sifma's website says there is a “DEI business case.” study McKinsey found that “top quartile companies for gender diversity in executive teams are 21% more likely to experience above average profitability than fourth quartile companies,” but the trade group admitted that “correlation is not equal to causality.”
