Success Story : Strategic Consulting

Natixis

Strategic Consulting

The context 

Natixis is an international management and financial services bank, created in 2006. Natixis had been committed to diversity for several years and wished to strengthen the strategic anchoring of this commitment. Natixis partnered with Pluribus to establish and work on a Global I&D Framework. The goal of this framework is to help Natixis work towards global tangible actions on how to create more inclusion every day, that can be applied at a local level as well.

Our approach

To support Natixis to build a global I&D foundation, it was imperative to first get a sense of understanding of diversity and inclusion in the various regions Natixis operates in. Therefore, we planned to run a number of regional focus groups, conduct individual interviews with Senior Managers around the world, and launch a questionnaire across the company to understand where Natixis was on their I&D journey. Nevertheless, the pandemic started shortly after, meaning that our Pluribus Associates could not travel to conduct physical focus groups and interviews anymore. Recognizing the need to adapt in order deliver the promised quality, we quickly transformed our materials to lead the focus groups and interviews virtually using digital platforms such as Zoom and AHAslides. We also made use of interactive tools (i.e. polling) to make sure that we get all the relevant inputs from the participants. 

As Natixis is a truly global company, we took a GLOCAL approach in the diagnostic process. In other words, we accounted for the global goals while ensuring that our recommendations could be applied both at a global and local level. Moreover, as every leader should be aware of the topic of I&D and should focus on inclusive behaviours, we delivered a I&D Awareness workshop to the members of the different I&D committees.

Even though we had to work fully virtually, we were agile, flexible, and able to quickly adapt to successfully deliver our first global project in this virtual context.

The impact

Leveraging the inputs we gathered through the focus groups, interviews, and the questionnaire, and taking into account global goals and local needs, we supported Natixis in: 

  • The creation of a I&D global framework that includes clear I&D definitions, a clear business case, areas of priorities globally, and a I&D strategic roadmap.
  • Their communication strategy.
  • Setting up and running Employee Resource Group (ERG) networks.  

Our key findings and recommendations were the foundation of a Natixis Global I&D strategy that was endorsed by Senior Leadership (BOD).

We have been offering strategic support to Natixis since 2020.