Our Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Tracey Yurko, participated in a panel discussion with executives across the recruiting and asset management industry hosted by Alt Credit. The panel focused on the state of diversity within finance, zeroing in on the topic, “How can companies in the alternative credit space improve their diversity?” During the conversation, Tracey described how her approach to advance Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) efforts in Bridgewater’s Legal and Regulatory group is concentrated on localizing the effort.
A part of Bridgewater’s centralized mission to advance D&I is enabling individual departments to tailor specific D&I initiatives to their needs. In accordance with this, Tracey, together with her team, established three primary department-specific goals: “Creating a space for dialogue, influencing others, and giving back.” Tracey said that after giving her team input on where to focus their collective energy, she has observed more people in her department getting involved in D&I related programs and initiatives. One example she cited was her team’s push establish a pro bono program that would prioritize immigration, racial justice, and veterans. This allowed individuals to use their specific legal skills to pursue causes they were passionate about.
The demonstrated commitment from employees within her department and across the firm has epitomized what Tracey believes D&I initiatives should promote in any environment. She shared with the panel that, “It's really created an environment where people can share and partner together. I think that those are the kinds of things that are the key to really drill into this and are essential to building inclusive environment, and inclusive in the ways that are particular and meaningful to your population of people.”