Dani is Chief Executive Office of the Independent Investment Management Initiative and an Independent Non-Executive Director and Consumer Duty Champion for Spring Capital Partners. Dani started her career in financial services in 2015 at Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) within the defined benefit pension scheme client team. Dani then moved on to Schroders Investment Management where she was responsible for some of the firm’s largest pension scheme clients including the in-house scheme before moving into the insurance business development team. Most recently, Dani has worked for Nordea Asset Management where she was responsible for building the firm’s presence in the UK insurance market. Dani graduated from the University of Exeter with a BSc in Psychology and holds the Investment Management Certificate (IMC) and the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing.

Why is corporate culture becoming more important as a strategic focus?

We all know that developing and maintaining a diverse workforce has positive outcomes. But we have a long way to go in growing more inclusive, resilient and high-performing cultures in our industry and it has to come from the top. When we set the right cultural tone within our firms, we provide an opportunity for our workforce to be happier and stronger, our clients to be more trusting and for the industry to see clearly what our firm's stand for and to truly demonstrate that we are working to align our interests with our clients. We also can't ignore the increased interest from investors who are probing more about culture when making investment decisions. It makes sense that fostering an inclusive and effective culture will help a firm to stand out.

In your view, why is it important to set a higher standard of stewardship and behaviour within the investment industry?

Our industry can be viewed negatively by those who don't work in it which is often exacerbated by the failures of financial services organisations hitting the headlines. As leaders, we have an opportunity to change the narrative with our actions. I believe that we have a duty to nurture impassioned, client-focused employees, to foster innovation and to set the corporate stewardship bar high so that the generations to come will automatically foster positive behaviours.

Why did you decide to sit on the ACT Global Leadership Council and what does it mean to you personally?

I run a think tank which represents the challenges and interests of smaller, specialist asset and wealth managers and culture is key to our member firms. Founders and portfolio managers of smaller and newer firms will view culture as an important part of why they started their businesses and something positive that they can offer their clients. But we all know that it is not perfect and it is through progressive industry collaborations (such as City Hive) and sharing institutional knowledge and best practice that we can improve. Sitting on the Global Leadership Council will afford me three key things: 1) to provide me with opportunity to join forces with like-minded individuals to 'raise the corporate culture bar higher' for the industry, 2) to represent smaller, more resource constrained firms in relation to key aspects such as measurement and reporting in order that they can effectively participate in improving their corporate culture and 3) It will give me more tools to support IIMI members in their quest to strive for excellence.