Corporate Social Responsibility
Who We Are
Since 1986, our global experience has provided clients with investment insights and a range of differentiated fixed income, equity, and alternative solutions. We thrive in a culture of debate that encourages ideas, respects diverse viewpoints, and invites candid discussion. By challenging one another and conventional thinking, we make better investment decisions and create value for our clients. We believe the elements of our culture have contributed to the quality of our client relationships and our investment success, and are also extremely important to how we view ourselves as a corporate citizen. We take many measures to advance our sustainability with a focus on employee engagement and inclusion, charitable giving, the environment, and the integration of environmental, social, governance factors in our investment decision making.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to deliver superior outcomes for our clients by encouraging independent thinking and challenging one another in a culture of integrity and mutual respect.
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Modern Slavery Statement
Our Values
Brandywine Global’s set of core values guides our day-to-day management interaction and forms the cornerstone of our culture. These six principles are integrated across the organization and provide a common framework for hiring, developing, promoting, and rewarding employees.
Employee Engagement
We recognize that our people are our most important asset. We are proud to share that Brandywine Global has continually been chosen by Pensions & Investments as a Best Place to Work. Brandywine Global is recognized for having a strong culture, positive work environment, high employee engagement, and generous benefits. Our low turnover speaks to the commitment of senior management to our firm’s culture and employees.
Brandywine Global offers a wide range of benefits to support its employees, including fully subsidized family health care options, a generous 401(k) plan with matching contributions, tuition reimbursement, paid time off, and family leave above what is required by law. In addition to competitive compensation, employees are eligible to receive profit sharing to participate in the Firm’s success.
We engage with employees through internal education sessions that focus on areas where our employees need or want development as well as quarterly firm-wide town hall meetings. Through periodic surveys of employees, we ask for feedback on how we are doing across several categories, including culture, leadership, diversity & inclusion, pay & benefits, role, and learning and development. The firm’s managing partner invites employees to lunch or coffee sessions to have a dialogue about what is working well or what could be improved.
We work hard but manage to find time to have fun along the way. We host a variety of events throughout the year that foster new and deepened connections. For instance, the firm holds “Meet and Greet” events to welcome newer employees and encourage introductions, firm-wide lunches to usher in holidays, or sporting events.
During the pandemic, we shifted many events online, including water cooler zooms, scavenger hunts, March Madness fundraisers, and other themed events to encourage employee engagement. We also introduced Zoom Topics, where employees led fun discussions on passions they held outside of work, including skiing, gardening, power lifting, golf, and more. As we begin to implement a hybrid way of working, we’ve launched “Brandywine Global Days” where the firm sponsors breakfasts and lunches to encourage employees to continue fostering relationships. We’ve partnered with Hungry, an application that allows employees to order meals for the days they will be on-site in an effort to reduce food waste and provide healthy meals as employees enjoy breaks together.
Employees are encouraged to introduce affinity groups to connect with others on similar interests and objectives. The Brandywine Young Professionals Network, developed by and for early-in-career professionals, aims to, among other things, further professional development through sharing of experiences, mentoring, and leveraging senior internal guest speakers. Employees also founded an environmental employee resource group as a forum to promote awareness and education around topics of sustainability to inspire environmental improvements in the workplace and personal lives.
Employee Development
Brandywine Global strives to be an organization that puts learning and development of our employees at the forefront with a focus on experience, exposure, and education. In addition to offering a generous tuition reimbursement program to advance the education of our employees, we host a Brandywine Global Manager Essentials course annually that covers topics from hiring great people to coaching for performance and rewarding performance.
Our performance management system focuses on meaningful conversations on improvement and development. Employees drive these check-ins and use them as an opportunity to share the work they’ve done over a quarter, what they have learned, and what additional support they may need to succeed. Our rewards system aligns with our check-ins, ensuring there is transparency in terms of expectations and how performance is awarded.
Brandywine Global provides internal educational opportunities, such as our monthly webinar series where employees can participate in learning directed toward broadening their understanding of the financial services and securities industry. Further, we encourage development within the firm by posting all positions internally and actively considering internal candidates before going outside the firm. Recently, we nominated five employees to participate in our parent company’s leadership development program led by McKinsey and focused on accelerating the development of mid- to senior-level Latino/Latina, Asian, and Black leaders.
Brandywine Global hosts formal summer internship and co-op programs throughout the year. The Summer Internship Program includes a learning series with presentations by business leaders and subject matter experts throughout the firm, networking opportunities, and business skill development. Partnering with local colleges and universities, Brandywine Global supports a year-round co-op program where students receive hands-on experience in investment management functions. Co-ops participate in reverse interviewing sessions with managers and department heads throughout the firm, who share career experience, industry knowledge, and subject matter expertise. Our aim is to provide internship and co-op participants with a positive company experience and early, hands-on experience and opportunities in their future fields of employment.
Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)
Our goal is to draw on and fully leverage the wisdom of a workforce that reflects the population we serve. For Brandywine Global, D&I starts with building a strong foundation that includes being intentional about stating our core set of values AND translating those values into expectations of behavior to which all employees are accountable.
We are intentional about hiring and developing a more diverse talent pool. To that end, we:
- Promote blind resumes at the onset of the candidate review process
- Conduct annual gender and minority pay equity analysis to ensure equal pay for equal work
- Ensure managers and employees understand what it means to support an environment free of harassment through mandatory annual anti-sexual harassment training
- Support our leaders in their journey to understand how their behaviors, biases, and ways of communicating can help or hinder an inclusive workforce through D&I education, including unconscious bias training
We continuously update our policies to support a workforce with diverse needs, including a paid leave program above and beyond what is required by law to ensure employees are compensated and supported equitably during a qualified Family Medical Leave Act leave. Additionally, we support flexible work schedules by leveraging virtual communication technology to improve presence when working remotely.
Within the community, we sponsor a number of initiatives to foster development of underrepresented groups within investment management, including:
- Local sponsorship and active participation in Women in Investing (WIN), a group that seeks to promote and support the learning, development, and advancement of women in the investment management business.
- Annual participation in the PA Conference for Women, where Brandywine Global sends at least 30 employees for a day of personal development.
To read more about our D&I efforts, you may review the Brandywine Global Diversity and Inclusion Statement.
Community Engagement
Brandywine Global promotes charitable giving as a way to inspire employees to give back to their communities and work toward a common goal. On "Friday Jeans Days," employees donate $5 to a designated charity of the week as selected by employees, raising on average over $25,000 a year. The firm also participates in a biennial food drive for Philabundance, a non-profit organization that feeds approximately 90,000 people in the Philadelphia region per week. Employees at Brandywine Global donated 36,000 pounds of food during our fourth, and most recent, food drive.
Brandywine Global also partnered with Rise Against Hunger to participate in a meal packaging event. Through this event, 45 volunteers packaged 10,152 meals that were shipped worldwide to help alleviate hunger on a global scale.
Volunteers also participate in local environmental initiatives, typically organized around an Earth Day clean-up event on the Schuylkill River, a waterway that flows through the city a few blocks from our office. The event is sponsored by the firm’s employee-driven Environmental Group. Employees also have initiated a professional clothing collection to donate to the Career Wardrobe, a local organization that seeks to empower individuals in their employment efforts.
Brandywine Global also participates in the annual "Take Your Child To Work Day," with wide participation from employee volunteers. The children (or relatives) of employees gain exposure to the office environment, the financial system, and different work opportunities and take part in the always popular stock market game, in which they manage mock portfolios.
In addition, many Brandywine Global employees volunteer their time and leadership skills outside the workplace to a broad range of cultural, educational, and philanthropic non-profit organizations.
Environmental Resourcefulness
Employees are encouraged to use less paper by leveraging the Firm’s electronic documents management and workflow systems. The Firm has also engaged a company that periodically collects old electronics (computers, televisions, cellphones, printers) for proper recycling or re-purposing. This service is utilized by both the firm and employees. Employees are also encouraged to participate in battery recycling provided through building management and to reduce their commuting carbon footprint by walking, biking, or utilizing public transportation. Employees are additionally given a reusable bag to replace single-use plastic bags that may be utilized on errands or otherwise. Recycling is promoted through designated bins and education. Sustainability is considered in the procurement of our disposable kitchen items. Our “plasticware” is made from corn and biodegrades safely; further, we’ve eliminated disposable cups in employee kitchen spaces in favor of permanent drinkware. We also eliminated plastic water bottles from vending areas and switched to filtered and fruit-infused water.
In addition, we strive to help save electricity and combat light pollution. The firm’s offices use occupancy sensors that automatically turn off lights in spaces that are unoccupied. The 1735 Market Street location participates annually in Earth Hour by switching off lights in a symbolic action meant to catalyze positive environmental impact and employees are also encouraged to participate. The 1735 Market Street location additionally participates in the National Lights Out movement to assist with bird migration across the Atlantic Flyway by turning off or blocking as many external and internal building lights as possible during bird migration seasons.