Quantum Matters: Dystopia or utopia? Action needed on D&I in quantum

Diversity and Inclusion in the quantum ecosphere is abysmal.

The numbers speak for themselves. In the private sector, only 1 in 54 of all applicants for female roles are female, while almost 80% of quantum companies do not have a senior female figure. There is no data on sexual orientation or ethnicity.

In an industry that is forecast to be worth $8.6bn in 2027, we cannot afford to miss out on talent. Especially when that industry is going to help solve some of the world’s most intractable environmental and medical problems. D&I is key to accelerating innovation and creativity, and avoiding group think, as evidenced in a report from The Inclusion Initiative at the London School of Economics.

Is there cause for hope? Definitely. Firstly, 62% of current employees in quantum want their employers to do more to increase diversity, according to recruitment firm Quantum Futures.

Secondly, two new organisations are focused on change. DiviQ was formed a few months ago, with industry luminaries like whurley and Denise Ruffner on board. Its mission is to foster a diverse quantum workforce through supporting those from underrepresented backgrounds with education, networking opportunities and mentorship. In an earlier incarnation, it paired over 400 quantum students, graduates and young professionals with mentors in the quantum space.

Meanwhile, The Inclusion Initiative at the London School of Economics, an institute that specialises in creating inclusive workplaces in financial and professional services through behavioural science and data, now has a new Deep Tech hub with a focus on quantum.

Thirdly, the quantum industry can learn from the finance industry, which is far from perfection, but has taken great strides in recruiting, retaining and promoting diverse staff, and changing the composition of its Boards.

In The City Quantum Summit Briefing on D&I, published earlier this month by The Inclusion Initiative (TII), participants in a brainstorming lunch at the Summit shared their advice from a lifetime of seeking to change their respective industries.

“Collecting data on diversity, benchmarking and fair hiring processes is crucial to ensure equal representation early in the hiring pipeline,” said Connor Teague, Founder of Quantum Futures. “Companies need to focus on unbiased job descriptions and interview processes.”

Cecily Josten, the researcher from TII who authored the report, noted that relying less on an applicant’s background and more on task-based assessments would aid recruiters in promoting a more diverse talent pool.

Bringing in leaders from other industries is helpful, pointed out Teague. “Hiring non-traditional quantum leaders to the business – when the co-founders step to the side and bring in a leader from a different industry – the business tends to stop hiring versions of themselves! I’ve seen great success with quantum businesses that have done this.”

Denise Wilson OBE, a leader who has transformed the composition of FTSE-350 Boards – 40% are women, compared to only a decade ago when 152 of the companies had no women on boards at all – was clear that “the power of publication should not be underestimated, and transparency drives change.”

Armed only with a target to increase the number of women on Boards, as CEO of the FTSE Women Leaders Review Wilson used embarrassment and peer pressure as a tool, publishing a list of Boards that were falling behind the new norm – as well as a barrage of social media highlighting the best and the worst performers, and supportive government guidance.

“Improving diversity means a multi-year, multi-layered approach, it requires systemic change and taking on a system that has worked very well for some but excludes others. D&I must be owned and held accountable at the Board level and talked about like any other business-critical issue,” she said.

Wilson noted the need to “lift the lid on every people process, pay, bonus allocations, retention, performance evaluations and the like.” A recent study of Gen Z by consultancy Oliver Wyman found that 30% of women looking to switch jobs cited better advancement and growth opportunities as a reason to leave a job, and wanted greater clarity about internal promotions, suggesting they see the current processes as unfair.

For Denise Ruffner, the President of Women in Quantum, a Founder at DiviQ, and a long-standing campaigner for a more diverse Deep Tech sector, culture is key. “Organisations need to pay attention to their culture and cultivate an environment where different voices and viewpoints are not only heard but encouraged and considered,” she said, pointing out that retention of highly skilled employees is a big issue in the industry.

The Oliver Wyman study noted that Gen Z (of all genders) expect fair pay, inclusive policies and transparency, or they quit. More than 60% of the 10,000 respondents in the US and the UK are looking to job hop despite an uncertain economy – they view work as transactional and “want to control their career paths, pushing hard or slowing down as needed to accommodate family, reduce stress, or pursue outside interests.”

Incorporating a degree of flexibility at work is another factor useful to encourage D&I. The average number of days worked from home or remotely is currently stabilising at around 25% of total working days. Flexible work policies can reduce quitting rates by 35%, according to recent work by Professor Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University.

LSE Professor Grace Lordan, Founder of TII, called for fair opportunities, visibility and voice, which depends on inclusive leaders who do not hire based on their own affinity, but hire for diversity and for perspectives that they do not yet have. “That really requires a change in ego in our leaders and a change of perspective towards a diversity mindset.”

Industry legend whurley was adamant that commitment and culture are crucial: “Commitment because hiring for DEI isn’t without its challenges and you can’t give up if you face a few along the way. Culture because that’s the #1 key to DEI in a company. Without a culture that embraces and celebrates differences you simply won’t succeed. DEI has to be built into your company’s DNA.”

Ultimately, D&I is much more than just a ‘nice to have’ in a transformational industry like quantum technology. A warning lies in what is currently happening with AI, and what happened with social media.

Whurley put it very clearly. “Quantum will change computing more in the next ten years than it has changed in the last century. Providing equal access and equal opportunities will make the difference between humanity’s future being diverse or dystopian.”

Karina Robinson is Senior Adviser to Multiverse Computing, Co-Founder of The Inclusion Initiative, and Founder of The City Quantum and AI Summit

Why the Benefits of Age Diversity Need to be Shouted from the Rooftops

Speech delivered on Champion Age Diversity Day

Age has been in the news.

In the UK, we just celebrated the Platinum Jubilee of our queen, now 96-years old, and still delivering value in the workplace. In her case, that happens to be the balcony on Buckingham Palace.

In the US we have the oldest man to be sworn in as President at age 78. At age 29, Joe Biden was one of the youngest people ever elected to the United States Senate. He may be domestically unpopular - hugely unpopular – but I am not alone in being grateful that an experienced statesman is in charge during the biggest crisis to face the West since the Cold War.

And on a June weekend, we saw a critically injured 36-year-old beat a 23-year-old at Roland Garros to walk away with his 14th French Open win, and thus be called the GREATEST OF ALL TIME, the best tennis player of his generation: Rafael Nadal, with two grand slams more than his closest opponents.

Yet we live in a world that worships youth. That dismisses the middle aged and the old. A world where if you are over 50, its going to be a nightmare trying to find a new job. And chances are, if you are employed, with stagflation, recession, whatever is coming, your employer is more likely to dismiss you if you are over 50, than if you are younger.

AGE DISCRIMINATION EXISTS AND ITS THRIVING

If I say to you, youth and innovation, youth and entrepreneurship, you won’t bat an eyelid.

If I say to you, an older worker and innovation, older worker and entrepreneurship…well, it doesn’t exactly slip off the tongue, does it?

In fact, I have my own story of age discrimination. In a bid to cut back on the household bills, I thought I would go grey, give up those boring visits to the hairdresser – boring and expensive – every six weeks. I bought a grey wig, to see what I would look like. Let me show you, as I showed my family.

(At this point in the speech, Karina put on a grey wig)

I admit it is a cheap, nasty wig. But what was even more horrific was my 21-year old son’s reaction: “Mama, you are supposed to be at the forefront of social change in the City, of Diversity and Inclusion. If you let yourself go grey, you won’t have any credibility.”

Let me repeat that:’ you won’t have any credibility. ‘

The conclusion is that if you are older, you don’t look like an agent of change, you don’t look like an entrepreneur, you don’t look like an innovator.

WHAT IS THE REALITY?

Let me give you 3 doses of reality.

First. The average age of a successful start-up founder is 45, according to a 2020 research study by Economica. Note the word ‘successful’.

Let me quote: ‘Among those who have started a firm, older entrepreneurs have a substantially higher success rate. Our evidence points to entrepreneurial performance rising sharply with age before cresting in the late fifties. If you were faced with two entrepreneurs and knew nothing about them besides their age, you would do better, on average, betting on the older one.’

Second dose of reality. The future of work. There is a lot of talk about automation taking away jobs from human beings. And about the older generation not being digital natives. We are digital immigrants. All true.

However, according to a study by The Inclusion Initiative at the London School of Economics, brains and heart win in the future of work.

Jobs that require abstract thinking, people engagement and soft skills are less likely to be automated, according to research. The authors also find that combining ‘heart’ with ‘brains’ will future-proof your job further. ‘Heart’ relates to jobs that involve soft skills and are high people engagement.

Now – and what I am going to say ain’t no research study – if I look at my peer group, we don’t need to prove ourselves anymore. We’re comfortable with our faults, with our qualities. We’ve either made it or we haven’t. We don’t take things as personally. We enjoy laughing at our own absurdities.

In a multigenerational workspace, that lack of ego, that lack of the need for struggle, can be very helpful.

Third dose of reality.

We have a vast, skills shortage in the Western world. Labour markets are in flux from the pandemic fallout and technological upheaval. Up to a billion people will need reskilling and life-long training by 2030, according to the OECD. We need more carers; we need more marketing executives; we need more quantum scientists.

And in parallel, on the plus side, we have a healthier population of people over 50, over 60, over 70, some of whom want to work longer, some of whom must, due to financial necessity, and many of whom will reinvent themselves.

As a microcosm of my third ‘dose of reality’, let me give you an example I have become very familiar with. The world of quantum computing. I won’t bore you with the details of how a finance and politics journalist has reinvented herself as a quantum guru – quantum involves geniuses with double PhDs, molecular simulation and Star Trek scenarios. Way out of my comfort zone.

In this ecosphere, the CEO of Google’s quantum spin out SandboxAQ, recently said, “The number one concern we have going forward is the skills gap. When people ask me, “what keeps me up at night?” – that’s what keeps me up at night – the lack of a talent pipeline in quantum and also lack of diversity in that pipeline.”

SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY

What’s Jack Hidary’s solution? Work with universities to increase the pipeline. But also work with what he calls the “existing adult working population”. While at Google, they trained numerous staff in various quantum and other advanced math courses; they trained customers; they upskilled engineers and scientists that were already- ALREADY – in the workforce.

THAT’s the biggest opportunity. THAT’s the key to the skills shortage. Upskill, training, reinvention in any shape.

In Top Gun Maverick, the much-publicised blockbuster, ageing star Tom Cruise is dismissed by a younger protagonist with the words, “The future is coming, and you’re not in it”. Who can doubt that he, at 58 years old, saves the day?!

Not only are we, the older generation, the future. WE are the key. WE are the opportunity. WE are the solution.

This is the keynote speech delivered by Karina Robinson, Co-Director of The Inclusion Initiative, on Champion Age Diversity Day, as part of a panel on Valuing Age Diversity in the Workplace.

It was sponsored by The Age Diversity Forum and Hansuke Consultants.

Power to the People

The merging of business and politics

GLOBAL TRENDS AND WHAT THEY MEAN FOR BOARDS OF DIRECTORS

This column was first delivered as a webinar to Z/Yen Group and the Financial Services club, which you can listen to here

Firstly, many thanks to my dear friend, Alderman, Professor and Sheriff Michael Mainelli for asking me to share some thoughts with you.

INTRODUCTION

Covid-19 and its economic effects are not going away anytime soon. We will be seeing a reconfiguration of our systems, ranging from geopolitical relations to the power of national governments, from company accounts to working patterns.

Some say the new paradigm is but an acceleration of existing trends. I wouldn’t disagree, but there is a point at which acceleration leads us into a new world, one where we must change our outlook. One where the responsibilities of Boards of Directors broaden out into the wider world. THAT is what I will focus on today.

For simplicity’s sake, I have divided this speech into three.

• THE RISK COMMITTEE

• THE NOMINATION AND REMUNERATION COMMITTEES

• THE AUDIT COMMITTEE 

What I am saying for each one equally applies to executives and entrepreneurs and, naturally, to the main Boards. 

RISK COMMITTEE

Black Swan Events

That famous phrase used by author Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Arguably a pandemic is not a Black Swan event when Bill Gates publicly – publicly! – talked about how unprepared governments were in a video a few years ago. But let us not quibble about definitions.

What matters is that Risk Committees need to expand the subjects on their agenda.

There will be other pandemics. There will be unseasonal flooding and bush fires like those in Australia. Climate change is a given and its effects on natural resources and economies are key. Take a recent catastrophe in Russia where the thawing permafrost lead to 20,000 tons of diesel spilling into the Norilsk River.

Geopolitically we are in a world of increasing nationalism and maverick leaders where the web of US-led, post-war institutions no longer function. Where does the dialogue and the negotiating happen now?

I will just mention three key countries.

RUSSIA. President Putin’s poll numbers are plummeting; Covid-19 deaths are more than the government’s corrupt statistics office will reveal; the oil-dependent Russian economy has been battered by record-low oil prices. Putin will need to engineer a distraction, this year or in 2021 – another invasion, perhaps Belarus? Or cutting off electricity supplies in some small corner of the West? Or a cyberattack in a port area…they (or perhaps another country like North Korea or Iran) have done it before in Rotterdam. 

CHINA – it is too large a subject to deal with in this webinar! Let me just say that China was never the West’s best friend, an assumption held by the government of David Cameron, but neither is China our worst enemy, President Trump’s current assumption. Bringing those supply chains back from China, the new ‘localism’, ain’t that easy!

THE US – Trump is embattled. There are major doubts that he can win the November election. Creating more division inside the US – the enemy within - isn’t enough. I would expect some new narrative and action around “the enemy without” – new tariffs, new trade wars, take your pick.

Rising Inequality

Pope Francis in his Urbis & Orbis Easter homily spoke about a “dignified life”. We are going to have millions…and millions… and millions… of unemployed. Whether the US unemployment rate is 13% or higher – you are all aware of the recent controversy about the numbers - it is bound to head up vertically. As will our numbers.

And the so-called full employment we had in much of the West was a lie, with zero-hour contracts, no ability to save, no margin for error. We left too many people behind on the back of globalisation and automation. Re-incorporating them (plus all those who falling headlong into unemployment now) into working society and a dignified life is an enormous challenge. If the corporate sector is not part of the solution, it will be perceived as part of the problem.

The divide on economic policy between left and right is fast disappearing. The evidence? President Macron of France spoke about the need to transform our capitalist societies due to their environmental and social inequality failures. A discussion about the Universal Basic Income is now mainstream. British trade union Unison saw a net increase of 16,000 in their members, which is 18% higher than in the same period last year.

I urge you to read a dystopian 1952 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Piano Player.

Government

After the financial crisis, the pendulum of power for financial services and banks swung back towards government and the regulators. Even more so now. Big government is back.

To keep businesses like airlines going they will be forced to turn loans into equity stakes. After all loans, even at low rates, don’t do the trick when the revenues aren’t there.

Circumstances, not ideology, have put government in the ascendant at the expense of the private sector. With the best will in the world, they won’t be able to sell those shareholdings anytime soon, and so they will influence how companies are run, how they interact with their suppliers, how they deal with their financials.

Of course, the biggest risk and opportunity is Quantum Computing. I am no expert, but as a shareholder in a quantum computing company, I have been exposed to some of the mind-blowing possibilities and would urge any board to be constantly updated on advances.

THE NOMINATION AND REMUNERATION COMMITTEES

People

This section is really about people. How do you attract the most talented people? Speaking mainly to a City audience, let me point out we have a problem – and this is relevant for financial and professional services in other OECD countries.

The City was where the best and the brightest in my generation headed. Now, they more generally head to Google or start-ups, they join NGOs or set up their own.  Former City Minister Mark Hoban chaired a Financial Services Skills Taskforce which found a skills and talent crisis in the sector, issues with purpose and culture and not enough continuous education.

Attracting the best and the brightest is one problem. But the unemployed are also your problem. The deprived are your problem. Racism is your problem. There is no longer a separation between politics and business.

In the words of Martin Luther King: “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

From Larry Fink of BlackRock to UK CEOs, companies have spoken out on the back of the Black Lives Matter movement. Some have announced special schemes or are looking anew at their recruitment. Those that haven’t are probably making a mistake. Because if you consider the demonstrators, and those who have spoken up on social media – all races, including a lot of whites.

A larger proportion of companies’ workforces are made up of millennials and Generation Z, and they CARE. They look for work/life alignment, where they can be the same person at work and at home, and they want to be proud of the company they work for.

Diversity & Inclusion

Look at it like ESG (Environmental Social Governance). That ‘E’ no longer sits in some far-off office and is trotted out once a year. Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England first highlighted the financial risk from stranded assets and, in parallel, the opportunities. The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund recently sold its Glencore shareholding for breaching it guidance on coal use.

Similarly, the ‘S’ in ESG, or Diversity & Inclusion, is now central. It is about risk and it is about innovation. To mitigate risk and think laterally we need diverse opinions which are encouraged and listened to.

That is why I am the Co-founder of the newest institute at the London School of Economics, The Inclusion Initiative, which uses behavioural science and data to improve innovation and the bottom line. My Co-Founder Professor Grace Lordan and I are in conversation with financial and professional firms about their becoming partners in this endeavour.

Do please get in touch if you think it might be of interest to you.

A few last words on people. Communication and collaboration are key skill sets. Empathetic leadership and the ability to understand what drives your many different stakeholders is something that no leader can do without. Chose them wisely.

“Build back better” is a phrase you may have heard. Understand what the impulse behind it is, for it will affect the future of companies.  

THE AUDIT COMMITTEE

Resilience

In the financial crisis, the banks were bailed out by the government. The regulators then forced them to increase their capital and work on changing their culture. That is why we are not facing a financial sector crisis, at least at the moment.

The corporate sector is different. Companies are being run in an “efficient” way. Cut costs to a minimum, carry as little capital as possible, get that ROE up.

That’s finished.

For two reasons. One, the realisation that the Black Swan world we live in demands higher capital sums and more focus on cash, or cash equivalents. The amplitude of the events we are facing is such that this is necessary.

Two. Treating employees as contractors, or outsourcing to India, and then focusing excessively on shareholders, is a discredited model. It now turns out to be a very risky one. One bank CEO said to me she thinks differently about employees in India whose circumstances mean lockdown and isolation aren’t possible.

And, as mentioned earlier, government and regulators will be much more powerful and involved in the private sector than before. They also don’t like that model. The new Stewardship Code, for instance, calls for more high-quality integrated reporting.

Costs still need to be cut, but automation, robotics and AI are now the focus, plus having 30% or more of your workforce on agile working, depending on your business, which will also save on real estate fixed costs – with  huge implications for commercial real estate.

Fraud

I have only one word. It’s going to be HUGE. I presume accountants are more than aware of this. Anecdotally I already know about one private equity-held company that took government furlough money in a month when it had no right to. When you have convulsions in funding, opportunities for misbehaviour increase.

Taxes

Look out for windfall taxes on some of the corporate sector. Governments are desperate for funds. They will hit individuals – a wealth tax perhaps, getting rid of the vestiges of the Non-Dom regime, a rise in income tax – but they can’t raise VAT as consumption needs to come back. That leaves the corporate sector in their crosshairs.

I hope, and perhaps this is more hope than reality, this crisis will lead to the proper taxation of the Googles and Amazons of this world. And not just taxes. Elon Musk, the Tesla and Space X entrepreneur, recently called for the break-up of Amazon. And I just read a convincing case for a digital advertising monopoly suit against Google, co-written by a Yale professor who’d been in the Anti-Trust unit of the US’s Department of Justice a few years ago.

Maybe, just maybe, the employees of the Facebooks and the Twitter’s will be the impulse behind proper corporate taxes on their employers? It is far-fetched as a theory, I will grant you that, but they aren’t afraid to be heard. In 2018, for instance, 20,000 Google employees – yes, 20,000 – walked out in protest at their company’s handling of sexual harassment.

CONCLUSION

In 2015 a client for the Robinson Hambro CEO Advisory service who was the Executive Chairman of a bank asked me to give a talk to his Global Advisory Board. My theme was that globalisation had peaked. Very prescient, if I say so myself, coming before Trump and Brexit. In case you think I have a crystal ball, let me say I also predicted Putin would be out of power in Russia. You can’t win them all!

The point of this story is that we cannot predict the future. But executives and non-executives can consider trends and responsibilities within Boards, within the Risk Committee, the Nominations and Remuneration Committees, and the Audit Committee, and act accordingly.

Thank you for listening. And now, the fun bit for me, I much look forward to your comments and questions.