Stephen Grove Shares Blackstone's DEI Goals For 2023

Stephen Grove, Vice President of DEI at Blackstone, shares the company's diversity, equity and inclusion goals for 2023.

I’ve been particularly inspired by a quote from Blackstone’s Global Head of DEI, Devin Glenn. She noted that companies need to “stop doing what’s not working… move beyond initiatives that feel good and focus on putting resources where they have the biggest ability to drive change.” As a member of the LGBTQ+ community and a DEI practitioner, I understand the unique challenges our community faces, and why a one size fits all approach to DEI won’t deliver support our community needs to feel included, seen and ultimately thrive. With this context, I’m especially proud of Blackstone’s willingness to experiment by piloting, pivoting, and scaling to deliver on its DEI strategy. This entrepreneurial mindset drives DEI efforts at Blackstone.

Inclusion and Equity are as important as Diversity

At Blackstone, we understand bringing more diverse employees into the firm is just the start. One of our primary focuses is to create a community of inclusion where everyone is seen, can work hard, and be rewarded for their efforts. This is especially important for the LGBTQ+ community where sometimes our identities are not visible, and our community’s specific needs and challenges are not as well understood. Blackstone’s Count Me In! campaign has enabled all US employees to self-identify their gender identity, and LGBTQ+ and ally status, ensuring our workforce has opportunities to be counted along their dimensions of diversity and provide the firm with insights as it determines how and where to allocate resources to support our LGBTQ+ employees. Being seen and feeling supported ensures all employees can bring their full selves to work.

What are our main goals and what do we have planned for 2023?

Throughout 2023, Blackstone will continue building on the pillars of our DEI strategic plan: Recruiting, Talent Management, Community and Inclusion, and Accountability. By expanding the schools and talent pipelines we tap, Blackstone’s investments in early career pipelines have yielded notable gains in the diversity of its summer intern and analyst classes. We have increased representation of women from 20% in 2015 to over 49% in 2022, and representation of racially diverse employees from 35% in 2015 to over 60% in 2022. In 2023 and beyond we’ll continue building on lessons learned to connect diverse talent to Blackstone and ensure the future generations of the financial services industry are drawn from the widest possible funnel of talent. Likewise, we’ll continue working to imbed inclusion and equity into our talent management and development processes to ensure everyone, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity can thrive at the firm.

Most importantly, at Blackstone we have long understood DEI is everyone’s responsibility, regardless of their role or title. Allyship will continue to be our DEI theme for 2023 and a key component of our 2023 DEI plan is to engage our leaders as DEI collaborators by providing training, a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of our employees, and support as they experiment and pilot in their own business groups. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with the fantastic teams here at Blackstone to build an inclusive workplace.

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