Global Co-Managing Partner, DLA Piper
Stories from a Sisterhood: Sandra Wallace
Kearney hosted Sandra Wallace as part of the first Stories from a Sisterhood series celebrating Black History Month.
In conversation with Maxine Ansah, Kearney director in Global Talent Mobility and Tax, Sandra shared with us valuable insights on social mobility including how the socio-economic factors have shaped her personal career journey, what companies are (and should be) doing to support social mobility and how social mobility fits into a greater DEI agenda.
Transcript (42 segments)
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Maxine29:37
Have influenced you, what do you think the importance of these people are in our careers?
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Sandra Wallace29:43
Mentors and people that influence you have to start really early, because I think for me, if your first mentor is at your career, but for a lot of people it will be too late. And we've got to look for people, in my view, that can influence and shape someone's journey from school age. So that's something that I think is important. When you talk about some of the things that I do, I think people have to get involved, organizations have to get involved, and have a responsibility not only in terms of their workforce and diversity, but they've got to get involved in their community. They've got to look outside and think what do they need to do in order to ensure people feel sponsored and mentored. So that's something that I think is quite important from very early on.
Did I have mentors? In the reality, no. I didn't really have any. I didn't know of anyone that really had come from a similar background at the firm at the time. But there were people that believed in me, and there were people that encouraged me to believe in myself. And then as I got more senior, I would reach out to people and say, it would be really good to chat to you about your experience or what you think I could do. So yes, at that point, as I got more senior as a lawyer, I was reaching out to people. But sort of mentorship programs, sponsorship programs didn't really exist. So it was either a case of muddling through or finding people that were willing and invested in seeing you do well.
I think it's critical. I think it's really important, not only because you can learn from others. The best thing you can do is learn from other people and find out where they might have had difficulty and how you can make sure you don't do the same, or the best practice that has really supported them. But it also just gives you a different perspective from different people. So the more people you can reach out to and get that perspective from, I think is really important.
I probably had a sponsor, if you like, at school. There was a teacher that absolutely believed that I could do more than was expected. And when I got into the law firm that I'm in now, there were some women in the team, in the employment team, that really inspired me and worked with me and sort of collaborated in order to try and progress. And I think that is really important.
And now even in a leadership role, I have reverse mentoring, just so I can—people tell you less, or people tell you what you want to hear the sooner you get, so you just need to make sure you have people that can tell you straight, really. Be prepared for difficult conversations. Be prepared for people to say that you're not my role model actually, because I don't like the way you do something, or I don't think it's achievable the same way you've done it, or whatever it might be. You've got to be prepared to hear things that you don't want to hear or you weren't expecting in that mentoring role as well. It's not all uplifting necessarily, but you should take lessons from it.
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Maxine33:12
Right, and now we have another question come through before we move on. So we've got one from El. Thank you for that. Hi Sandra, what are the skills and abilities that you have acquired through your specific journey to law and exec roles that you see as a strength relative to people who have had a more normative journey?
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Sandra Wallace33:36
I think I am quite down to earth, which is quite important really when people want to progress. I don't think anyone feels that they can't come and have a conversation with me. You know, they can't find some time in my diary. I'm pretty what you see is what you get, and I think that's quite an important characteristic because the more aloof you are, the more untouchable you are, the less likely you're really going to get the pulse of an organization and the feel for what people are thinking. So I think that's quite important. Don't feel you have to act or be a certain way just because as you progress.
I think I'm good at listening. I don't have to be the only voice in the room. I don't have to be the loudest voice in the room. Sometimes I don't speak at all if the environment requires me just to be listening. And I think people find that quite hard, especially lawyers, because that's what we do, right? We like to—we think that everybody wants to know our opinion and our advice, and so we sometimes are not the best at waiting to hear and listen and really listen.
I remember when the Black Lives—George Floyd killing happened, and a lot of people were coming out, especially in the law, saying we're sponsoring this and we're putting money into that and we're doing lots of things and isn't this outrageous. And a lot of people said in the firm to me, what are you doing and why are we not making any statements and why are we not doing all these things? And I said, aren't you more interested in what we haven't been doing over these years? Aren't you more interested to challenge me about the fact that I'm the only Black person on the executive and that we still have a lot to do in terms of the leadership of our law firm? And I'll shout about it and I'll be out there, I'll be the first one to shout about it when I've got my house in order. And I think it's very important that we are not the first voice in the space sometimes, because sometimes that voice isn't authentic.
A skill I perhaps have as well is just relating to people. I think that is a good thing about a lawyer—you're interested in people, you're a bit nosy, you're invested in finding out, getting to the truth, getting to the root of something. And I think that's a skill that's actually quite useful because people feel like you're interested in them and you're interested in their development, and you're invested in getting things right for them. So those are probably the things that have stood me in the best stead, I think.
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Maxine36:17
Fantastic. And I did like that comment—yes, absolutely, that was a good response back to the firm. So let's talk a little bit about your activism, your advocacy within promoting DEI specifically. You were the UK Social Mobility Commissioner from 2018 to 2021. Wow, right, that is impressive. And like everybody on here, I would like to know how did you get into that role?
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Sandra Wallace36:48
So a lot of people were talking to me about my journey, as you do, and things that impacted you. And there's, like I said, the intersectionality of my being a Black woman and leader in a business from a more disadvantaged background—and I hate that word, I don't, because my family were amazing, but having no money is a disadvantage, whether you like it or not. So in that sense, that was probably the part that influenced me the most in terms of how I progressed and what I thought about and what pushed me and drove me.
And I thought about all the times when I could have fallen away from the career that I'm in now because of my socioeconomic background, because I didn't go to the right school, because I didn't have the top grades, because I didn't go to the right university, because I didn't know so many things, social etiquette that were expected. And that for me was—if I could get to the level I am in my organization and add the value that I hope I do, how many people could do that and don't even get a look in, don't even have an opportunity to do that?
And I can do that to an extent in the law firm. So we have a Head Start program that sponsors people from school age through to university or their chosen professional career—it doesn't have to be law—and providing financial, mentoring, and other support. We do apprenticeships, so again if your route to law is you can't afford to go to university, and apprenticeship schemes are available, we do solicitor apprenticeships and other types of apprenticeships as well. There were lots of things we were doing in the firm with other law firms, but actually that presupposed you got to that stage, you could get to that stage.
And so the Social Mobility Commission was a commission that was a government body set up by Theresa May—no, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. They changed it from the Child Poverty Commission to the Social Mobility Commission. And it was looking at the whole shebang—all the factors that could influence someone's ability to progress, and not just when they got into their career.
And I felt that given my journey and the things that I'd faced before I'd even got into law, I wanted to do something that started earlier. So it looked at early years education, it looked at poverty, it looked at the taxation system, it looked at social mobility within different professions and organizations. The Civil Service—we did a big report on the Civil Service. It was one of the most inclusive organizations at entry level, but when it came to top Civil Service, we saw just how that changed—who you knew, where you went to school, fireside conversations really that led to who progressed in those organizations.
So being able to open up other organizations and open up the agenda in so many different ways became quite important to me. And that's how I came—I applied to be a commissioner. I had to go through a process, apply, and then when I was a commissioner, we lobbied hard. We sat in the Department for Education, and I lobbied hard for us to get moved to the Cabinet Office because I felt it was more important that the whole Cabinet and the whole Treasury was thinking about social mobility, and not just the Department for Education.
And if you can improve social mobility, it intersects with so many other things. Because if you look at the people that are poor, education attainment—then you can look at ethnic minorities and representations in that. If you look at women's representation in terms of the career ladder and the socioeconomic diversity that will impact women and people with disabilities, it all intersects a lot of the time with where you started and where you came from and your socioeconomic background. And so I felt able to touch lots of different areas just by focusing on this. And that's why that became my focus. Sorry, a very long answer, but it's something I feel very passionate about, and I want people to be thinking about it because it is so important.
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Maxine41:26
I'm just here wondering how on earth you've got a family, you're doing a full-time role managing 15 offices, you stood as commissioner—and we'll get to that, because maybe you know something that I don't know and I'm feeling badly, so we'll come to that later. Whatever superpower skill you've got, you've got to share with us today. But staying within social mobility, we have a question from Natan, and I think that's a really good one. Natan says: one of the most difficult aspects of socioeconomic progression is regional inequality in the UK. What is one of the ways you think this can be changed?
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Sandra Wallace42:05
Yeah, so one of the things the Commission looked at was to identify what we called cold spots and hot spots in the UK, so that if the government were aware of areas that suffered from greater socioeconomic deprivation, they could target their resources and target their interests much more into those areas. And that is something we still have a lot to do, but they have started to think about a lot more. So it's identifying those places.
I think there should be a greater move to devolved government, so that if the authorities in charge of the areas that have the greatest need can pinpoint that and really direct resources to areas where they can improve access to opportunity, to facilities, to provision, then it would be a lot easier than central government trying to give everybody the same pot. And so that is what we tried to do as a commission—target those areas of deprivation. And Oldham is—for anyone that's in Europe and doesn't know, it's an area in the north of England that has benefited greatly from a much greater focus on socioeconomic diversity and the need to improve college provision, education provision, child welfare, access to school meals. And by targeting it in that way, because they could see what the problem areas are, they've been able to make some progress.
The government, as you probably also noticed, has also started to move some of its Civil Service provision out of London. So Wolverhampton has transport now, there's a big Civil Service presence in Leeds. So if you say to people—and that's why I never left Birmingham. Everybody thought I should live in London, of course I'm a lawyer, a manager, I must move to London. I never moved, because people have to know that you can succeed regionally. You don't have to leave your family and your friends to succeed. That's a lot of reason why people fail in their chosen careers, in their professions, because they've left their network, they've left their stability to go and seek a job and often it doesn't work out. So it's a really good point, it's a really good question, and that regional inequality does need to be addressed.
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Maxine44:37
Great. We would also like to move on—and as a firm, we're currently starting on our journey within social mobility advocacy, if I might call it that way—and looking at what can firms do. Right, you know, how do you envision the future of social mobility and diversity in leadership positions, and what steps do you think are necessary to achieve greater inclusivity? Because people could come in from different backgrounds and you increase the numbers, but that inclusion piece is so important. Because you don't want groups of people being miserable and not thriving in an organization after all these initiatives are put in place.
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Sandra Wallace45:24
I think we have to think of them as not one-offs. It's something you've got to think about fundamentally. And if you look at your website, you talk about how fundamental diversity and inclusion is to you and the people working with you. So wouldn't you want to know if you're only attracting a certain type of person? And that could be very rich Black people, it doesn't have to be that they have to be white. But are you attracting the same sort of people, or what it might well be? And the only way you can do that is to gather data and to understand what the makeup of your organization is.
And we gather social mobility data by asking a simple question. There's a website I can refer you to for more information on this, but it's: what was the occupation of your parents or carers at age 14? Because a lot of people say, oh, social mobility, it's great, but it only works in the UK because free school meals doesn't really work elsewhere and education is free elsewhere. And it's because you've got a class system. But if you ask that background question at age 14, that gives you an idea of the socioeconomic makeup of your workforce.
And then you might find you haven't got an issue. There's many organizations out there that are really mixed and really diverse in terms of backgrounds and people's experience and how they came to work at the organization, and it might be fine. But in the legal world, unfortunately, because there's been a lot of work on this, we are required to gather that data by our regulatory body. And it has found that predominantly people come from professional backgrounds who become lawyers in the UK, and therefore that doesn't bode well for the diversity of our thought and experience and the communities in which we thrive.
So that's what you can do—start gathering that data. But it's hard, because people think, why do they want to know what background, why do they want to know what my parents did? And so you have to storytelling. I talked to a bank recently, and someone that was on the panel reached out to me afterwards and said they hadn't gone for promotion because they didn't want to—the educational background was still going to be relevant to the application and they weren't going to go for it because no one had appreciated they'd come from the background that they had. So it could be holding people back in your organization that are happily working in their role but just close their minds to progression. So I do think you can gather that data, that will give you a better idea of what you're looking at as an organization, but you have to storytelling. You have to explain why you're gathering that data so people understand that it's about removing barriers, so the opportunities and people feeling that they can go for opportunities isn't prohibited by where they believe they've come from and what people expect.
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Maxine48:47
I think it's important to mention that I have lately come across people—and we speak about other parts of the UK within London—I'm involved with an organization, and people had not—these are people in junior school, in high school, secondary school—who have not seen anybody in their families go past A-level, who have not been to the city, not to the Strand, definitely not. Couldn't see a future where they could be anything more than they've seen in their families. Most of the families didn't speak any English. And you also mentioned that it's important to do some of these initiatives at an earlier age. How have you done that? What initiatives are there to get to that age where it's critical for people to curve their—to inspire their futures?
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Sandra Wallace49:39
I mean, it's working alongside schools. There's lots of organizations out there. It's hard for a school to just rock up and say, oh, I want to talk to your pupils. Schools have got enough, teachers have got lots to do. But lots of organizations partner with schools in order that you can offer people opportunities—not necessarily work experience, because that's sometimes hard and the environment doesn't quite work—but just bring them into the city. Remembering to pay bus fares and train fares, because sometimes people can't afford to do it. And then just to understand what an office is about and understand what it means to come into the city. We do that here, just getting them interacting.
Another thing that I would love to see us doing a lot more of is going into parents' evenings. Now COVID is over, parents' evenings are back up and running. But wouldn't it be great to have a stand at the back of parents' evenings where there was lots of different law firms or lots of different professions talking to the parents of children that are not thinking about their children going into these professions? So as they're walking out after hearing about how their son or daughter have done, they can see a stand that says, look, law is something that these people are thinking about.
Because often if you talked to my mom and dad, they had no idea about any of this stuff. All they could see was a long period with no money coming in and a long period when I wouldn't have any money, and they just worried for me. And they're worried quite frankly for themselves, they need it as well. And opening their eyes to the possibilities and so on. So that's something I'd love to see happening a lot more, because we're there anyway. Parents' evenings happen all the time. So that would be something I'd want to see happen. But there's lots of partnerships you can do in schools, and I would happily put you in touch with any if anyone was interested. But we do need to get to people a lot earlier, and we should think about sponsoring people through as we do.
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Maxine51:38
Great. No, that's fantastic, and we will definitely be coming for all the tips from you. I'm sure the audience would love to get involved. And sometimes even knowing what to do is a difficult thing. We don't have a lot of time to spend all day with you, but we know you're a very busy woman. I can't see any questions in the chat. Anyone that has said to us a very few minutes—right, so ask the questions now, or I'll keep going with my questions. We would like to know some other things. Going back to: what advice would you give to a younger Sandra? You know, young Sandra—choose whatever age young Sandra is—what advice would you give to young Sandra?
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Sandra Wallace52:29
Well, if I was to start at the beginning in my legal career, I'd say young Sandra needed to start a lot of this outreach and a lot of this work a lot earlier. The fact is, I was so motivated for my own career and showing everybody how good I was and I could do it and I could succeed, that maybe I wasn't a voice as early as I should have been. So I would say, Sandra, think about what your contribution could be now. Don't wait till you're in a management role or whatever.
If I was even younger than that, I would say don't give yourself such a hard time. Give yourself a break. Don't be in such a rush, maybe, and think about what it is that you want to achieve and why, and what's holding you back, rather than just thinking I've got to go for this and worry about later.
And I think I'd also say that you have got to have courage. And be able to call out things—I didn't call out enough things, I think, as I was progressing in my career, things that were not right. And I think you have to have a little bit of courage, not in an aggressive way, not in an antagonistic way, but you have to be able to say, you know what, I don't think that's great behavior. And I think I would have called out things maybe sooner than I did, not wanting to rock the boat. And I think you have to be brave sometimes for people that may not have a voice or feel they have a voice. So those are some of the things I'd probably say. And have fun. I was very serious, of course.
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Maxine54:10
Yes! Have fun, enjoy. And what would that change? And if I asked you to say, what is the best—one thing do you want everybody to take away from today? I don't know if it's a similar thing, but everybody on the call, what one thing do you want them to take away from today's talk?
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Sandra Wallace54:31
Just spend some time—if social mobility isn't your thing, if you don't really know much about it, go to the Social Mobility Commission website or socialmobilityworks.org and just find out a bit more about social mobility and how it interacts and intersects with other areas of diversity and inclusion and what part we could play in that. And just think about whether any of your recruitment practices—whether official or unofficial—could be creating barriers for people who haven't actually disclosed to you that they feel some of this could be holding them back. So I'd ask you to think about those things. But essentially, just keep the topic going, really. Just keep the conversation going. This is Black History Month. Every month we should be thinking about these issues and thinking about what difference we can make in our organization and also the communities that surround us. So that's what I would say.
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Maxine55:34
Right. And this is completely—I'm going to throw this on you because we like to know this, right? We like to know this. Sandra, who would play you in a movie? In a movie of your life story, who would play you?
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Sandra Wallace55:51
I don't know. I'm available! No, I don't know. My life story—somebody that maybe from a similar background. I hope someone not famous but needs a break.
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Maxine56:17
That's a good answer. Hey Sandra, it's been wonderful. It's been such a treat. I've been waiting for this—I should say my whole life, but that would be a bit cheesy. I know that everybody on here, we've been really keen to have you come to speak to us. You are definitely an inspiration for so many. And thank you so much for the work you do. And by the way, whenever it is that you did start, you made such an impact that it makes up for not starting much earlier. And thank you for pushing the country in this course, because it's so important and not many people know about social mobility. In fact, people don't even understand what it is. And sharing your story is so courageous and helps so many people. And currently we are so blessed to have had you talk to us. And I know that you've changed many of our minds today to do more in that space. So thank you for telling us that we need to speak up more about things that are not right, and that we need to be courageous. I'm going to take this away with me as well. And then lastly, to spend some time learning more about social mobility and how we can help in that space—not just during Black History Month, but every day. So we'll be coming to you for all the tips you promised. So I'll be dropping you a line, like, what should we be doing? And I know the rest of the office will be grateful for those tips. So thank you so much, Sandra.
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Sandra Wallace57:37
My pleasure. Absolute pleasure, my pleasure. Thank you, Maxine. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you, everybody. Cheers. Bye-bye.