"There were events that were happening globally and domestically in our communities that woke us up to the realization that we can do a better job managing and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion," Moore explained during our discussion."And so, we've adopted that part of our core culture in Cadence. And we look at it for our employees and how we manage our teams and hire people.
Wall took inspiration internally—from folks like Moore, who is often behind the company's most aggressive social good initiatives—and externally from peers, customers and friends. When Cadence was making plans for the fund, Wall looked to those peers for advice. He asked Muindi, a font of knowledge on treasury matters related to the Racial Equity Fund who had been through the process before, what he would change if he were to do it again. Muindi responded that it should be scalable and not restricted geographically.