Bringing the baby
Equity firm pays for child and nanny to travel in a bid to recruit talent
KKR & Co., one of the oldest private equity firms, is rolling out a new perk in the struggle to hire and retain talent: Flying nannies.
Billionaire co-founders Henry Kravis and George Roberts in May extended the company’s leave time for new parents and added a benefit allowing them to bring a new child and caregiver on business trips, paid for by KKR. It’s the only major private equity firm, and one of the few U.S. companies, to offer the travel policy, according to the Families and Work Institute.
Big private equity firms are vying to add women and minorities to their male-dominated workplaces as they expand beyond buyouts into larger, multi-faceted money managers. While diversity has long been considered a corporate asset, the industry has made little progress in placing women in high-level posts, lagging behind other financial companies.
Across the 10 biggest buyout shops, nine out of 10 senior managers are men, according to data Bloomberg compiled in April. Twelve of KKR’s 93 senior professionals are women, the data showed, compared with four out of 71 three years ago.
In investment banking, women hold about 16 per cent of senior positions, according to the non-profit group Catalyst. In venture capital, the number is about 15 per cent, according to research firm Preqin.
KKR, founded in 1976, started an inclusion and diversity council this year to explore policy changes that would boost the firm’s appeal to women, minorities, gays and lesbians, who traditionally haven’t entered asset management in large numbers.
Led by KKR partner Michael Michelson, the committee meets every other week and includes senior executives such as Suzanne Donohoe, Scott Nuttall, Joseph Bae and Johannes Huth.
“The best and the brightest of the future don’t look like the best and the brightest of the past,” said Ken Mehlman, a KKR partner and former chairman of the Republican National Committee. “This is a necessary first step. I hope the whole industry improves and we all learn together.”
Brittany Bagley, a member of KKR’s technology deals team in Menlo Park, Calif., was one of the first to take advantage of the firm’s new travel benefit. Many parents face a “moment of guilt” when they prepare to go back to work after having a child, said Bagley. So when the 32-year-old returned from maternity leave and immediately needed to travel, Bagley was relieved to bring her four-monthold son and a caretaker with her across the country.
“Do I do a good job at work, or do I spend time with my child? One of those questions is now off the table,” said Bagley.
KKR will fly a child and caretaker, provide a hotel room and pay for meals on business trips until the baby’s first birthday, Kravis and Roberts wrote to employees.
The firm also increased paid leave for primary caregivers — including employees who adopt or use a surrogate — to 16 weeks from 12 weeks, extended paid leave for non-primary caregivers to 10 days from five, and started a “transition support” program to reintegrate new parents returning from leave.
“It’s a very unique policy,” Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, a New Yorkbased non-profit, said about KKR’s child-care travel offering. “I hope that other companies follow suit. To see the light, you have to feel the heat.”
The U.S. is the only developed nation that doesn’t mandate maternity leave with pay.
Only 12 per cent of U.S. privatesector employees have access to any paid family leave through their jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.