Our Commitment
Our people collectively define our core identity. We deeply believe in fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture to attract, develop, and retain the brightest talent, and better serve our clients.
We are at the forefront of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) within the student community at LSE and within the wider British student consultancy scene.
Our commitment to DE&I arises from three dimensions:
For the Firm
DE&I is essential to achieve the mission of Castore, connecting the brightest minds of LSE with the most daring entrepreneurs. We relentlessly attract and recruit LSE top talent, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, neurodiversity or ability.
For Our People
People feeling valued, supported, and nurtured regardless of their background drives creativity, productivity, teamwork and performance. By creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment, we unlock the full potential of each and every one of our student consultants.
For Our Clients
The increasing diversity of entrepreneurs, investors, and their missions benefit from Castore's inclusivity. A diverse workforce enables us to better relate to our clients, and address their business challenges through creative, integrated and unbiased solutions. Castore's multicultural and interdisciplinary teams deliver excellence.
Our Workforce Demographics
We regularly collect, aggregate, and publish demographics data from our consultants to track our diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture.
By quantifying the workforce demographics, we as a firm can accurately track our progress towards delivering our DE&I mission and commitment. Demographics data and statistics offer actionable insights that feed into the leadership team's decision-making process on all strategic aspects from recruitment to client engagement.
Methodology
For every intake, we request consultants to provide self-identification information as part of the onboarding process. We ask questions on their education, disability, ethnic group, religion, sex and gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background.
When collecting the above information (with the exception of education and socioeconomic background), we follow the UK Government Statistical Service's harmonised standards which can be accessed here. For education and socioeconomic background data, we use criterions commonly used by employers.
Academic Discipline
Our student consultants come from a wide range of academic discipline available at the LSE.
In our most recent intake, 12 different academic departments were represented.
The top four departments currently being represented within our workforce are
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Department of Management (53%)
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Department of Economics (10%)
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Department of Finance (10%)
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Department of Mathematics (6%)
Other fields of study among our consultants include Philosophy, Law, Environmental studies, Geography, History and Methodology.
Degree Level
62% of our consultants are pursuing a postgraduate degree whilst the remaining 38% are undergraduate students.
A high proportion of postgraduate students are pursuing the Global Master's in Management and the CEMS Master's in International Management.
This skew towards postgraduate students with substantial work experience creates greater value for our clients and nurtures a learning environment for our undergraduate consultants.
Ethnicity
We maintain a ethnically diverse cohort of student consultants.
Of those who disclosed their ethnicity, 55% were of a white background, whilst the remaining 45% were from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background.
Our ethnic distribution is on track to be approximately in line with that of the wider LSE student body which consists of 42% from a white background and 58% from a BAME background.
Source: 2019–20 Annual Report on
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at LSE (https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/divisions/equity-diversity-and-inclusion/Assets/Documents/PDFs/Public-Sector-Equality-Duty-report-for-2019-20.pdf)
Gender
In our most recent intake, Castore's members are 40% female.
However, Castore places the same number of women and men in leadership positions and senior roles (Project Managers and Principals). In leadership positions, the split is 50% female and 50% male.
Across the entire firm, 40% of our consultants are female and 60% are male, placing us on track to reach our gender parity target by the 2023/24 academic year.
Religion
Given the LSE's internationally diverse student body, we are proud to have a multitude of religions being represented at Castore Consulting.
Whilst 48% of our consultants identified as having no religion, the remaining 52% consisted of a mixture of different faiths.
Accordingly, 29% identified as Christians, 10% as Hindus, 3% as Muslims, 3% as Buddhists, 2% as Sikhs, and 3% as any other religion.
Pre-University Education
Our consultants come from a diverse range of pre-university education backgrounds.
29% of our consultants studied at state schools, while 47% studied at independent or fee-paying schools. This represents an approximate 3:5 ratio between state and independent or fee-paying schools.
When adjusted for students who attended independent or fee-paying schools with bursaries, we achieve a ratio of 1:1 between state/bursary recipients and independent or fee-paying schools without bursaries.