Interview
Kirsty Cooper is group general counsel and a member of the executive committee at insurance multinational Aviva. She speaks about the challenges of managing diversity across Europe and beyond, and how Aviva has managed to place diversity and inclusion at the heart of what it does.
Diversity and inclusion is about having a diverse workforce and team, but it is also about being inclusive, not just in terms of gender, LGBT, ethnicity and so on, but of diversity of thought. I do feel that having a wider pool of people with different backgrounds results in different perspectives and better decisions.
We were doing some work recently looking at the statistics from different areas across the business, and in legal we’re probably one of the best. I don’t think it’s something we’ve done consciously; it’s more a function of looking for the best and for people who will add value. For me, it’s not about meeting quotas but encouraging people to be themselves. When I am hiring, I try and put aside my biases and concentrate on the capabilities we are looking for, and for performance at interview. I think that all of my team share this, in that we don’t have a set view in regards to educational background or candidates coming from a certain type of firm.
