International Business Brilliance Awards 2025 | Diversity and Inclusion | Gold Award Winner: NEST (National Employment Savings Trust) | Project Name: Empowering Inclusion: Nest’s DE&I Strategy for a Diverse Future

In this edition of Behind the Brilliance, we spotlight Nest (National Employment Savings Trust), winner of the Gold Award for Brilliance in Diversity & Inclusion at the HR Brilliance Awards™ for their project “Empowering Inclusion: Nest’s DE&I Strategy for a Diverse Future.”

Through a collective effort that united senior leaders, DE&I networks, and colleagues across the organisation, Nest has built a culture where inclusion, equity, and belonging aren’t just values—they’re everyday actions. The result is a workplace that reflects the diverse communities they serve, fostering representation, empathy, and opportunity for all.

This award isn’t just for one person — it’s for everyone at Nest. It’s a reminder that inclusion benefits all.

— Nest Team

Interview with the Nest DE&I Team

1. Winning the Gold Brilliance Award for Diversity and Inclusion is a tremendous achievement. What does this recognition mean for Nest and its DE&I strategy?

Nest are extremely proud to receive this award. The creation of the diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) strategy was a collective effort, and involved a number of colleagues across Nest, from the DE&I lead, to senior leaders and the members of our DE&I networks. Since its launch, colleagues (such as the senior champions, chairs and members of our networks and wider colleagues) across Nest have worked hard to build on the culture and feeling of inclusion and belonging at Nest and this award is a testament to their work. This award isn’t just one person, it’s for everyone at Nest. It should also encourage other organisations to focus on their efforts in inclusion and belonging, and act as a reminder that this is important and benefits all.

2. Your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy has a clear focus on representation, inclusivity, and creating a culture of belonging. Can you share how these pillars have shaped the company’s journey?

The ‘pillars of change’ outlined in our strategy have played an important role in how we think about what we’re trying to achieve. These are some key words and reminders to us all of what we want our colleagues to see at Nest and how we want everyone to feel. We want to represent not only our members but the wider community across the UK – people  from all backgrounds and walks of lives and experiences. To better understand our members and the communities we serve, it’s important for us to represent them across as many areas of the business as possible. But it’s not just about representation, as this means nothing if our colleagues do not feel included or as if they belong, this is partly why we have been focusing on these pillars and will continue to do so in the future. 

3. What were some of the most impactful initiatives in your DE&I strategy, and how did they contribute to both the internal culture and broader industry change?

There’s a number of impactful initiatives outlined in the DE&I strategy which contributed to our internal culture and broader industry change. For example, in 2023 we launched a two year sponsorship programme, which was aimed at different groups which are underrepresented at our senior leadership level. Our target was to have at least two individuals from this group either progress or be able to confirm that they have developed in their career. As a result of the programme we saw one of the female colleagues involved in the programme graduate from the award winning Diversity Project Pathway programme(which focuses on developing the female portfolio Managers of the future), supporting their ambitions of moving into a fund management role. We had a second individual enrolled on the programme who progressed into one of our senior leadership roles. This is important for Nest as we actively work to ensure that we have people from all backgrounds across all levels of our organisation. It also supports a wider initiative of working towards increasing the number of female fund managers in the investment industry. 

4. Nest’s DE&I strategy includes innovative approaches like reverse mentoring and allyship campaigns. How have these initiatives impacted the leadership team and employees across all levels?

To improve our organisational culture, it’s important for us to understand one another’s experiences, challenges and ways of working. To support us with this, we launched our reverse mentoring programme. This was launched for a number of reasons, one which was in response to some of our internal data and feedback. This programme saw members of our leadership team paired with colleagues from specific backgrounds. The feedback from our leadership team was positive (scoring 4.5/5 for the programme), so much so that some of our leadership team continued with the programme beyond its end date. Our leadership team gave feedback such as, 

• It’s helped me to understand the perspectives of someone different from me. 
• It gave me an insight into how others think and experience Nest. 
• I have gained a friend along the way.
• It helped me to learn about things from the perspective of someone from a different background to me which I found it fascinating and insightful.

As a result of this initiative, we saw an improvement in the feeling of inclusion and belonging shared by some colleagues from the group.

5. The “Let’s Talk About…” sessions have created powerful dialogues. How do these sessions help in promoting open communication and empathy within the company?

We want our colleagues to feel comfortable talking about diversity in all its forms, whilst giving all colleagues an opportunity to listen and be able to share their own experiences. We do this in a number of ways, one of which is our seven parts Let’s Talk About series. This series ran monthly from September 2024. Each month, one of our DE&I networks have held an open all staff discussion on a topic of relevance to the group they represent. The topics are also relevant to Nest colleagues based on different data sets. Since the start of the series, we have discussed topics from the 2024 summer riots and racial inclusion, mental health at work, faith and belief at work, to invisible disabilities, social diversity, LGBTQ+ inclusion and carers in the workplace. We have had nearly 500 colleagues attend these sessions. The discussions are important as they help to promote open communication, whilst giving all colleagues the platform to share and talk about their experiences and what’s important to them. It also helps to educate colleagues across the organisation, sharing different perspectives, helping to build empathy and an understanding of the experiences of others. 

6. What role does data and insights play in your DE&I strategy, and how do you measure the success of your initiatives in terms of employee satisfaction and business performance?

One of the pillars included in the DE&I strategy is data and insight, as this is key to understanding change within the organisation. Firstly, it is important for us to collect and improve both the quantitative and qualitative data that we have to ensure we have a picture of the experiences of candidates and our colleagues, as well as the impact and outcomes of our policies, processes, approaches and ways of working on different groups. Once we have the insight, we can put initiatives and actions in place to address the findings (if and where needed) and work towards achieving our desired outcomes outlined in the strategy. Over time we have continued to work towards improving our data collection, as well as monitoring our data and initiatives to check if the initiatives and/or action taken has made a difference to their experiences of colleagues and candidates, and desired outcomes of the business. 

7. Nest has actively collaborated with other organizations to promote DE&I across the financial and pensions industries. Can you explain the importance of these external partnerships and their impact?

At Nest our workforce is diverse, and we want to create an environment where we all colleagues feel included. Our workforce is no different to our members, they are people from all backgrounds and walks of life, and therefore we believe that it’s important for the industry that we operate in to be the same. This is one of the reasons that we as an industry should work together, to ensure this is the case. By working together and being an industry that is diverse, inclusive and welcoming to all, we can ensure that we are attractive to all who are interested in pensions or might not have been historically. Its also an opportunity for us to learn from each other to ensure that we as an industry deliver the best outcomes for our members across the UK. 

8. What does brilliance mean to you in the context of Diversity and Inclusion, and how does it reflect the success of Nest’s strategy and achievements in this area?

Brilliance in diversity and inclusion is not about awards, it’s the positive feeling and experiences of people – from our candidates, colleagues, members to those that simply interact with us. It’s about diversity and inclusion being an integral part of our corporate strategy, weaving through everything that we do with all colleagues and teams being aware of the role that they play allowing us to deliver on our strategy and ultimately for our members.

Celebrating Brilliance

Nest’s success in diversity and inclusion shows that meaningful change is achieved through action, not intention. By combining leadership commitment, data-driven insight, and a genuine desire to listen and learn, Nest continues to shape a future where diversity drives innovation — and inclusion fuels brilliance.