Any front office African Americans in IB?

You asked why there isn't more diversity on the street given that only 'average talent' is required. Here are my thoughts.

One: you have to have a complete package to get hired. Elements of a complete package: connections, grades, prior experience, relevant knowledge (interview prep), education (brand-name schools preferred). Those elements may change in proportion to each other between candidates, but they're all in the mix. Black students typically underperform relative to their white (and Asian) peers in each/every one of those categories.

a: Black students are less likely to come from the privileged background or the social circle that would grant them the family or friendship connections that make 'networking' less of an earnest, brutal hustle to get a foot in the door and more of a "Hi Uncle Jack's golfing buddy, remember me? I'd like a job."

b: They're also less likely to perform well in school. Google and numerous sociological studies will show you statistics, data, and anecdotal quotes that outline a myriad of reasons that point to the same fact: black kids don't do as well in school as peers of other races.

c: They're also less likely to have internships or extracurriculars, and this may be a function of the two things I previously mentioned. If you don't know someone who can help you get an internship, you're less likely to take one. If you don't have someone who will tell you how important it is to get one in the first place, you're less likely to seek one out. If you don't have good grades, you're less likely to get a competitive internship in the first place, even if you are motivated or aware enough to apply.

d: If you come from a chronically under-resourced community, you are less likely to know how to find out what the right things to study for your aspirational career are. On top of that, you're less likely to master them as well as your peers (circling back to the comment on academic performance and grades).

e: Students from under-resourced communities enjoy less educational equity, meaning they are less likely to have access to the same quality of instruction, the same level of safety and stability in their years of primary and secondary education, and the same variety and quality of extracurricular opportunities as their peers from other races.

As a result, they perform more poorly in primary school, leading to limited secondary school options (no merit entrance to elite private or magnet public schools), leading to poorer results in the college application process (whether by rejection from elite schools applied to or a self-selection to apply exclusively to less elite schools).

Summary: Black kids are less likely to have as 'strong' a profile (based on this formula) as kids from better-resourced backgrounds will.

You can argue until you're blue in the face whether this is a function of: an innate limit on the intelligence of the African race, a poorer work ethic among African-Americans descended from slaves who now don't know how to work hard because they're used to being driven by a slavemaster, a result of an institutionalized and systemic format of oppression over the course of history that has placed blacks in a particularly bad way in America, or any other viewpoint. None of that is the point of this reply.

Two: black communities don't think of finance as a remarkably special or prestigious career. For whatever reason, you'll see a lot of smart black kids going to good schools (i.e. the very kids who would most likely be best-positioned to succeed in the banking recruiting process) focusing on law school or med school so they can be a doctor, lawyer, or enter public service.

A lot of the most successful, historically admired, and prominent black figures in our nation's history were lawyers, civil rights activists, politicians, or doctors. The black community puts a lot of prestige on those fields, so naturally, all the smart kids who pursued the academic route rather than the athletic one tend to gravitate in those directions. As a result, some of the candidates who would in all honesty do pretty well in recruiting don't even try their hand at it.

Summary: This self-selection will automatically reduce the number of black kids you see in finance. Fewer kids trying means fewer kids succeeding and breaking in.

Three: diversity programs often wind up attracting and/or serving the wrong kids. There's an entire host of programs like Prep for Prep, MLT, SEO, Inroads, MBA Jumpstart, etc. that strive to 'change the face of the corporate landscape' by funneling more minorities into the elite banks' and consulting firms' recruiting processes. Unfortunately, far too frequently, these programs do one or both of the following:

a: Accepting, training, and propelling the success of minorities who already enjoy privilege. A huge portion of MLT/SEO/Inroads classes each year are black kids from the Ivies and other top-25/35/whatever schools. Kids like that already have an idea of what's going on, so the programs don't really advance the success of minorities as a whole when they are taking the people who are already informed and prepared for the recruiting process and trying to inform and prepare them for the recruiting process.

If you take 100 kids (numbers made up) who were already planning and studying to apply, you haven't increased the number or (arguably) the quality of the minority applicant pool. On the other hand, were you to go out and take 100 kids who weren't necessary planning or prepared to apply, guided and prepared them to apply, and supported them in their application, you just doubled the number of prepared applicants and thus dramatically increased the number of candidates that may successfully make their way into the industry.

b: Failing to properly train the people they accept. Some of the candidates coming out of these programs really don't know what on earth is going on. They got through the screening process by writing decent essays about their interest in finance, successfully got through the screening interviews without letting on how much of a mouth-breathing retard they are, got into the program, got placed at an investment bank, and failed to get the full-time offer because of how much of a clown they were.

I know someone from a state school who got into one of these programs, got GS IBD for his summer, and failed to return. He was lucky to wind up at another BB for full-time. I know another who got into a scholarship program at one of the most prominent BBs. He literally got cash towards his next school year, that's how competitive this program was. He also failed to return, and as far as I know, he isn't in the industry at all.

I'm not one to say those persons didn't deserve to be in their respective programs, but it's clear they didn't make use of the resources and advantages they were offered (whatever they may have been), and ultimately they harmed both the organization's reputation and the perception of minorities in the industry as a whole through their individual failure and inadequacy.

Summary: diversity programs don't always do the best job of screening for qualified applicants or screening for applicants that actually need the help, resources, and advantages the program offers. As a result, the legitimacy of these programs is hampered, and the reputation of minorities in the industry suffers (as made manifest by the general attitude of so many people posting in this thread [and countless others] already).

Four: innate human behavior works against minorities in a number of ways when it comes to hiring. Resonance is key. People hire who they like, who looks like themselves, who reminds them of something they are comfortable and familiar with. For most minorities, this means that the person in a position to hire them is biologically wired to not want to hire them. It's an unspoken but powerful influence.

A white guy from North Jersey who attended Yale before getting his MBA at Wharton is not going to see much of himself in a black kid in a subpar suit who grew up in Detroit, got a merit scholarship to UMich, is carrying a 3.4 at Ross, and isn't in a fraternity, no matter how on point that kid's line or how crisp his waves may be. On the other hand, the kid from another county in North Jersey who caddied at that guy's country club as a teenager and now attends Wharton undergrad has all kinds of thing in common with the banker: shared locale, social stratum, fellow Whartonite, mutual common acquaintances, etc. The MBA doesn't know why, but he just feels more strongly convinced the second guy can do the job better than the first, even if their GPA is the same. It's science; we're drawn to those similar to ourselves.

Side note: Now, note that earlier I switched from speaking exclusively about black students and began speaking about students from under-resourced communities. Not every student from an unprivileged background is black. There are Hispanic, Asian, and white students suffering from educational inequity as well. They aren't helped by affirmative action or diversity recruiting initiatives. If anything, they're penalized for their ethnicity. While the black kid (rich or poor, underprivileged or privileged) skates into a good school or good job on the laurels of affirmative action, the kid who grew up next door (be it in a rich neighborhood with manicured lawns or a violent neighborhood of dilapidated rowhomes) gets no leg up because he isn't an under-represented minority.

Comments unrelated to your original question: You shouldn't be so preoccupied with wondering why things are the way they are and simply focus on what lies ahead of you.

a: Worry less about what others think. Be humble, be hardworking, and win people over. That means that in your networking and interviews, you need to prove you are likable and capable. It's that simple. Someone who successfully and convincingly portrays that will get hired: white, black, yellow, brown, purple, or orange.

b: Prepare yourself. Study hard, be informed and knowledgeable, and crush interviews. Focus less on preemptively pointing fingers elsewhere and make sure you do everything within your control to make sure you maximize any opportunity put in front of you.

c: Be smart. This may sound contradictory, but once you get in (if you do), be aware of the things that will affect you. It sucks, but make sure you're smiling, pleasant, cheerful, and articulate. Someone may be biased against you without even really knowing it. It can truly be culturally ingrained into them, no matter how loudly they claim they aren't bigoted or judgmental. Make sure you are aware of the way perceptions can harm you as a black woman, and work actively to prevent anything from blowing up on you.

In closing: You can do anything you set your mind to. I did. I broke into one of the leading banks in the industry, earlier than most, and succeeded better than most ... even though I didn't look like anyone else there. This isn't to blow my own horn, this is simply to indicate what's possible if you're a worker. Be a worker. Put your head down and work. Be smart, but just work.