Brewin Dolphin Exeter team member wins diversity award

News
27/03/2020


Caroline Lake, head of diversity and inclusion at Brewin Dolphin, has been presented with the Best Initiatives in Diversity award at the City of London Wealth Management Awards (COLWMA), which took place at London’s Guildhall.


Caroline has been based in Brewin Dolphin’s Exeter office since joining the company in 2004. She moved into human resources around ten years ago and was appointed to her current role in December 2017. As the person responsible for creating and delivering Brewin Dolphin’s diversity, inclusion and wellbeing strategies, Caroline usually spends a couple of days a week working either in the firm’s London office or visiting its other locations across the UK.


“My job involves working collaboratively with leaders and colleagues throughout the organisation to ensure we are identifying and removing barriers within our policies and processes and creating a level playing field for all employees,”

she said.

“Our goal is to have an inclusive culture that enables everyone to contribute, improves diversity in the talent pipeline and at senior levels and reflects the diversity in our communities.”


The initiatives Caroline has undertaken include signing up to the Women in Finance Charter and setting aspirational targets for gender diversity within Brewin Dolphin’s senior management team; being part of the 30% Club cross-company mentoring scheme; launching a Women@Brewin network that holds speaker events, roundtables and learning sessions; enhancing the company’s shared parental leave and pay policy so that all employees enjoy the same benefits regardless of gender; introducing coaching for new parents taking maternity, adoption, surrogacy or shared parental leave that helps with their transition to and from leave; ensuring gender balance in promotion panels; signing up to the government’s Disability Confident Scheme; introducing agile working for all employees to enable a better work and home life balance; becoming members of ‘myGwork’, a networking hub for LGBT+ professionals and partnering with social mobility charity The Brokerage to deliver skills workshops and offer paid internships to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.


“I’m absolutely delighted to have won this award, as not only for myself but also because of the recognition it represents for everything that my Brewin Dolphin colleagues are doing to change the culture and diversity of our business,”

said Caroline.

“It’s not something one person can do alone.”


In addition to Caroline’s award, Brewin Dolphin also scooped the Best Discretionary Wealth Management Company of the Year title and chief executive David Nicol collected the Lifetime Achievement award.