‘Our industry should represent the community it serves’: MFAA

On what the MFAA hoped to achieve from the event, the association’s chief executive Anja Pannek told The Adviser that the aim was to showcase the importance of “promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and the great initiatives occurring within [the broking] industry”.

“The reason we think DEI is so important for our industry, is that our industry should represent the community it serves,” Pannek said.

“Australia is such a diverse country … [and] we want the industry to grow and thrive into the future.”

Pannek said that having mortgage brokers across the country being able to connect with a diverse community is a “critical part” of the MFAA’s mission to promote DEI.

“We started with opportunities for women, and we feel it’s really changed the conversation in industry around the need for greater female participation” Pannek said.

“And we see that with so many programs across industry. For us, this is now taking it to the next level, which is how do we really activate the conversation on DEI and just make it part of our industry DNA?”

A survey conducted by the MFAA in February 2024 – the DEI Survey – asked 370 members about their experience and perceptions on DEI.

When asked on whether they believed that industry leaders were open-minded about promoting diversity and inclusion, 68 per cent of respondents answered “yes” while 22.4 per cent were unsure and 9.6 per cent answered “no”.

According to the survey, around 75 per cent of members said they would promote the broking industry to individuals of diverse ethnicities, ages, sexual orientations, and genders; however, around 45 per cent said they did not believe that greater DEI support would improve a business’s bottom line.

Meanwhile, 50 per cent of members said they felt fully respected and included in the broking industry, with 29 per cent indicating they felt “somewhat” included and 11 per cent said they did not feel included or respected.

Pannek further told The Adviser that the broker panellists – Niti Bhargava, Resolve Finance; Sadish Visvalingam, Premier Financial Advocates; Kerry Kalendra, MTA Mortgage Brokers; and Chantelle Rangel, Mortgage Choice Marrickville – challenged the industry in thinking about how to apply DEI in a real-world and practical setting.

“[They] really challenged us to say, ‘How do you go about hiring if you’re a broker?’, ‘Where do you look for talent? Do you just look towards the people you know, or more broadly?’,” Pannek said.

“How do we make sure that we look beyond just the known and challenge our own consciousness when we’re looking to recruit, and what we’re looking to promote? I think that’s what [DEI] means for everyday brokers, but it’s also about industry leaders.”

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