This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
The fascinating reason why the UK’s biggest financial institutions are getting creative
By Lysanne Currie | 21 October 2024 | Wealth
In the world of finance, creativity is making a comeback as firms such as BlackRock are hiring liberal arts grads for their fresh ideas and critical thinking skills. And with Al taking over routine tasks, creative thinking is becoming more valuable by the hour
BlackRock, the world’s largest finance and investment firm, is used to making waves. Ever since the morning of January 2018, in fact, when BlackRock CEO Larry Fink sent a letter to the world’s top leaders urging them to make “a positive contribution to society” — quite the reverse-ferret from a CEO who just four years previously had claimed that activism harmed job creation – historically seen as one of the key moments in the rise of ‘conscious capitalism’.
Now, the company is making headlines again. In May 2024, BlackRock COO Robert Goldstein announced the firm was looking to hire more diverse candidates — in particular, liberal arts graduates: a sharp swerve from the usual STEM majors. Interviewed at Fortune’s Future of Finance: Technology and Transformation conference, Robert said: “We have more and more conviction that we need people who majored in history, in English, and things that have nothing to do with finance or technology.”
The thinking goes that, while business concepts can be taught, liberal arts graduates bring unique perspectives, and creative and critical thinking skills that can drive innovation and growth. These skills, of logic and innovation, are highly valuable and harder to teach. For example, liberal arts grads are adept at reading critically – a skill essential for analysing complex financial documents.
Related: Read Tempus Magazine’s summer issue starring Sir Ridley Scott
And BlackRock isn’t the only firm hiring against type: other investment banking and financial giants such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan (where liberal arts grads comprise a good percentage of the workforce) and Deloitte are increasingly interested in moving beyond their traditional preference for finance, economics, and maths majors, to embrace the power of cognitive diversity.
As a 2017 report from McKinsey confirmed, diversity is good for business, with statistics revealing that employing people of varied backgrounds, including career backgrounds, helps bring fresh and unique perspectives, which ultimately drives innovation and unlocks growth.
“People from different backgrounds often have different thought processes,” says Deloitte recruiter Rob Dyer. “If they’ve studied history, for example, their research skills give them a huge boost. They’re self-starters -— they’re used to going away, studying on their own, and coming back with a view. These are important skills for us.”
In fact, many current CEOs of major financial institutions have liberal arts backgrounds, including Ken Chennault (American Express), Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs), Brian Moynihan (Bank of America), and Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone Group).
INTELLIGENT MOVES
There’s a deeper spur behind this, in the form of two little letters with huge implications: AI. As Robert Goldstein says, artificial intelligence is “the most significant technology, innovation, evolution, revolution of my 30-year career.”
As Al takes over routine and analytical tasks, it has created a space for other kinds of skills that are just as important. Questioning, creativity skills and innovation are going to be hugely important as Al begins to free up the capacity for creative thought processes.
As George Lee, co-head of Goldman Sachs’ Global Institute, told Bloomberg TV, “Some of the skills that are really salient to cooperate with this new intelligence in the world are critical thinking, understanding logic and rhetoric, and the ability to be creative. It will allow non-technical people to accomplish a lot more and, by the way, begin to perform what were formerly believed to be technical tasks.”
Related: JP Morgan’s Oliver Gregson shares the investment trends to watch
With the unstoppable evolution of Al, this demand for creative thinkers to maintain a competitive advantage is only going to grow – as evinced by retreats offering environments that inspire out-of-the-box thinking. Phoebe Vela-Hitcox, managing director of The Lakes by Yoo has seen a huge increase in c-suite teams hiring their lakeside homes for creative thinking and top-level strategy retreats. Likewise, hotels such as Hotel Castello di Reschio in Umbria encourage participants to step away from their usual routines and think creatively, offering (alongside activities such as horse-riding, foraging workshops and Italian cookery lessons) two ‘conversation baths, in which spa-goers can sit and share ideas.
Ennismore founder and CEO Sharan Pasricha, agrees that “the best place to spark creativity is outside of the office. When we really want to go left-field we go up to Gleneagles – the only hotel where I can hang out [but also dive into deep issues”.
So, as the value of creative thinking skyrockets, and bankers hire English majors over STEM grads, it all spells, as Lee cheerfully puts it, the “revenge of the liberal arts”. Will this fusion of technology and academic diversity herald a promising new era in finance? As Robert Goldstein says, “It’s that diversity of thinking and diversity of people, and diversity of looking at different ways to solve a problem, that really fuels innovation.”