At City Hive, we never stop talking about how to bringcultural change to the industry. We continue creating opportunities to raisethe profile of our corporate members that Stand With Us.

In recent months this has included speaking on key issuesincluding the importance of culture, diversity and inclusion in our industry,BAME issues (and our issues with blanket terminology, neurodiversity,governance and looking forward to the regulatory landscape and changes that maycome upon us.

Not afraid to confront challenging topics, we curated anevening conversation on International Day for the Elimination of RacialDiscrimination – a frankdiscussion of what people of colour really talk about when no one islistening in, to shine a light on daily experiences.

We held our exclusive event where we interviewed seniortalent from our Founding Members, to talk about their very different journeysand experiences that brought them to our industry. We joined Brooks Macdonaldat their offices to talk to their global staff about culture, inclusion andbelonging.

You may have seen Bev Shah interviewed on BBC1’s Panoramaabout the importance of culture, especially in the wake of the Woodford scandalthat the programme focused on, causing a stir on social media amid the realisationthat most news stories about our industry are not positive. And withcharacteristic early morning energy, Bev also became a fixture on BBC BreakfastBriefing, brightening up the Brexit-heavy news.

We enjoyed challenging tired perspectives with calls toaction on panels at Citywire Wealth Manager, Aberdeen Standard, Vanguard,Credit Suisse, M&G Prudential, the Prince’s Trust, MHP, Refinitiv LipperFund Selector Forum, Money Marketing Conference, Regulations and ComplianceSummit, European Sustainable Investment Conference - to name a few.

We’ve also had the honour to judge the Womenin Investment Awards and PortfolioAdviser Wealth Adviser Awards, FinancialNews Asset Management Awards, We Are the City Rising Star Awardsand the PrincesTrust Enterprise Challenge. We were shortlisted for a PRIaward for our Treasury-commissioned research into a Women in Financecharter in Brazil.

And underpinning are our concrete actions to supportindustry change. We spoke with leaders in diversity and inclusion, sales,marketing and distribution as we launched our City Stars programme tosupport mid-career talent, and to lay the ground work for our innovativeindustry Mentoringprogramme.  We met with the Bank ofEngland, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury to discussindustry issues and pathways to change. We issued a report on the gender paygap in our industry – with calls to redress the imbalance.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes we have been preparing torevitalise the Ethnicity workstream at the Diversity Project. We are working ona study that will examine the UK’s 40% gender pension gap and what our industrycan do as people change the way they save and invest.

And we didn’t forget to have fun – amid the awards dinnerswe onboarded our newest recruit, Scout,and we are preparing for our annualInternational Men’s Day Quiz.