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76 Ishimaru. "ere are long-standing civil rights laws that say you cannot discriminate on people on the basis of various factors, including race, gender, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, and on other factors," he said. "ose laws are on the books, and they're likely to stay on the books. at gets you part of the way there—and a long part of the way there." Still, despite the many regulations in place to protect civil rights and stop discrimination— both in the workplace and in lending practices, according to Ishimaru, those only take the industry so far. Organizations realizing the "good business sense" in diversity can push it even further. "Having companies think about how this makes sense and providing benefits for them is a far bigger driver than any sort of requirement in Dodd-Frank," Ishimaru said. "Yes, Dodd-Frank talks about diversity and inclusion, encouraging it, understanding its import, but really when you sit down and talk to people within the industry, they say, 'We want to hire great people. We want to find out where they are. We want to bring them into our fold. We want to hire great talent and we want to keep them.' Knowing that there are bigger pools of talented people or bigger shares of the market than you may have had in the past is a plus for them." When working with institutions on implementing Section 342, Ishimaru says it's all about posing those bigger-benefit questions. "How do you retain people? How do you keep employees happy? How do you tap into new markets of people you may not have thought about in the past?" he asks. "How do you sell new markets the goods and services that you provide? Does it help you to have a diverse employee base that can both understand and reach for various markets that you haven't been able to in the past? All of those are business drivers that, when you think about why diversity and inclusion is important, those drivers will lead many companies to say, 'is makes good business sense for us, and we want to do that. We want to increase market share. We want to get great people to work for us. We want to keep those people for long periods of time to stay with us, as well.' at, I think, is a plus for anyone doing business." But sometimes, even realizing these business benefits isn't enough. According to both Ishimaru and Shelton, there's a hurdle that often holds up inclusion issues—and not just in the financial sector, either: Complacency. "People are really busy, right?" Ishimaru said. "ey can fall into doing things in ways that are comfortable to them. ey know where to look for people. ey know that if we do X, Y, and Z, we can sell this much product. We fall into these comfort zones where we do what we do, and it comes up with a decent result." Pushing out of these comfort zones is crucial for business growth, according to Ishimaru. "If we want to get better, sometimes we have to go beyond that," he said. "It's crazy not to think about new markets for both possible em- ployees or for selling whatever product you have." Shelton says this sort of complacency— the desire to stick to the status quo—is also common with people in high-level positions like Ishimaru's. But Ishimaru bucks the trend, according to Shelton. "Oftentimes, you'll have people in positions along those lines and as long as they can keep things afloat, everything is great," Shelton said. "ey're not pushing to get more done and seeing each step as a preparation for the next step, but that's where Stuart is." Shelton calls this "recognizing it's a movement, not a moment." "We know the final goal some people say is impossible to accomplish, but we know that as we continue to move forward, step by step, issue by issue, and success by success, that you keep moving ahead," Shelton said. And Ishimaru agrees. In regards to diversity and civil rights, he says, we've gone quite the distance—but there's still a long road ahead. "ings have changed a lot over a relatively short period of time. For a lot of people, they say, 'Well, that's enough. We've made this progress. We can do what we do now, and not worry about these issues anymore,'" Ishimaru said. "As much as I wish we were in a color-blind, gender-blind, disability-blind society, I don't think we are yet, although we've come a long way. It's amazing the progress we've seen on a certain level, in a relatively short period of time." FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT Regardless of the future of Dodd-Frank—or how complacent or set in its ways the financial services industry becomes—if Ishimaru's history is any indication, he'll never stop fighting the good fight. "I've never seen him take his eyes off the prize or stop continuing to move forward to bring some solution to the troubles we have throughout our country on so many important issues, and these days, financial services issues," Shelton said. "It's important not to forget … and he doesn't." "Having companies think about how this makes sense for them is a far bigger driver than any sort of requirement in Dodd-Frank. Yes, Dodd-Frank talks about diversity and inclusion, encouraging it, understanding its import, but really when you sit down and talk to people within the industry, they say, 'We want to hire great people.'" – Stuart Ishimaru, Assistant Director Office of Equal Opportunity and Fairness and Head of the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion and the Office of Civil Rights, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

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