Newark-based PGIM, the investment management business of Prudential Financial, on Monday said it hired Sancia Dalley as a managing director in the PGIM Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
Dalley comes to PGIM from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the nonprofit foundation focused on economic equity and social justice led by Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the former U.S. attorney general, Bobby Kennedy. Dalley served as senior vice president of investor engagement, where she grew the RFK Compass Investors Program into a platform of 400 institutional investors and asset managers with $7 trillion in assets under management, while also chairing the foundation’s annual Investor Conference. Dalley also created a workstream that provided opportunities to emerging and diverse managers in alternatives for access to capital and mentorship, while launching the Alpha Equity Initiative to increase transparency and reporting on DEI in asset management.
Prior to Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Dalley worked with the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, to build the Global Business Coalition, a CEO-led organization to drive resources and policies to much-needed countries impacted by critical health issues. She then went on to serve as vice president in the U.N. Envoy’s Office for Health Financing under GBCHealth, representing the private sector in key global partnerships such as Roll Back Malaria, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the World Health Organization.
PGIM, together with parent company Prudential, said it is committed to helping to close the racial wealth gap. Industry data continues to show that women- and minority-owned asset managers still oversee less than 2% of assets under management globally. Prudential is committed to supporting an expanded universe of asset managers, including diverse asset managers, in the alternatives space in order to achieve above-market-rate returns and to help enable wealth creation.
Similarly, Historically Black Colleges and Universities continue to have fewer resources than comparable peers in higher education institutions across multiple disciplines, including finance and investments. PGIM also provides access to critical educational resources for students in finance at select HBCUs so that they may enter the industry in a more competitive and equitable standing. Through the creation of PGIM Finance Labs, student-led investment funds and access to current market intelligence, PGIM will not only uplift students at select HBCUs, but also support the faculty and endowment professionals who drive the operational and educational sustainability of these important institutions.
As a senior leader in the firm, Dalley will partner across PGIM and Prudential’s leadership and investment teams, as well as with industry partners, to advance both strategies.
Dalley has a bachelor’s degree in international relations and politics and serves on the board of the Center for Active Design, as well as the Casoro Group Education Foundation, where she was involved in seeding a partnership with Huston-Tillotson University, an HBCU in Austin, Texas, to create a real estate asset management certificate program within the school of business.
“Throughout her career, Sancia has demonstrated the fearlessness needed to tackle difficult and complex challenges facing underrepresented people, communities and countries, and has done so with tremendous impact,” Kathryn Sayko, PGIM’s chief DEI officer, said. “Her expertise and network will help advance PGIM’s leadership in these two important initiatives, while supporting our efforts to create equitable access to capital, knowledge and experience for the next generation of financial professionals.”