Throughout 2021, we continued our journey to embed diversity and inclusion in our culture and people practices. Our initiatives included supporting the advancement of women and members of under-represented groups through targeted outreach to attract and hire, and programs to enhance career planning, leadership development, and senior leader sponsorship. We continue to equip our people with resources to practice inclusion and how to interrupt unconscious bias in people-related decisions.

We are striving for gender balance as a business imperative. We know gender balance and more women in leadership roles will help us deliver sustainable growth.

Deutsche Bank continues to advance women in the workplace. 30% of the Supervisory Board members are women (2020: 30%), meeting the ongoing statutory requirement of 30% for listed and co-determined German companies under the gender quota legislation introduced in 2015.

The Supervisory Board’s latest goals for the Management Board were set in 2017 – to have at least 20% women by June 30, 2022. At year-end 2021, there were two women on the Management Board.

Based on the bank’s own strategy on diversity and inclusion, and in accordance with the German Gender quota legislation, in May 2021 the Management Board renewed its aspirational goals for the representation of women at the two management levels below the Management Board. The goals are now a minimum of 30% at the first and at the second management level below the Management Board, to be achieved by December 31, 2025.

With 20.0% (2020: 20.0%) women at the first management level and 27.5% (2020: 23.9%) women at the second level below the Management Board, the path to achieve our voluntary goals by 2025 is ambitious. More broadly, the Management Board remains committed to increasing diverse representation at all levels.

The Management Board also renewed the bank’s voluntary goals for the representation of women in leadership positions. By 2025 women should represent a minimum of 35% of Managing Director, Director and Vice President positions combined. The goals are part of the “Balanced Scorecard” assessing the Management Board and Group Management Committee, and are designed to strengthen the pipeline of women at two levels below the Management Board.

As of year-end 2021, women comprise 19.3% of Managing Directors, 25.7% of Directors and 32.8% of Vice Presidents. The bank has strengthened the proportion of women at entry levels as well as making progress at the senior levels.

Women employees by year-end 2021 including promotions beginning of 2022:

headcount in %

¹ Numbers may not add up for rounding reasons.
² Pursuant to Germany’s Law for the Equal Participation of Women and Men in Management Positions in the Private and Public Sectors.
³ Goal reflects June 2022.
⁴ Goal reflects December 2025.
⁵ Goals and actuals including the following year’s promotions.
⁶ Excluding Postbank.

Female employees by corporate title, in % ^1,2

¹ Numbers may not add up for rounding reasons.
² Corporate titles for Postbank (including subsidiaries) are technically derived.

We will strengthen our efforts to drive gender diversity in our bank and work towards refreshed gender diversity goals.

To accelerate progress, a “35 by 25” program was established that is sponsored and actively supported by the Management Board and Group Management Committee. The program comprises of 5 key initiative streams that impact the full employee lifecycle spanning talent attraction, talent development and promotion.

The bank launched the Schneider-Lenné Cadre, named after Ellen Schneider-Lenné, the first woman on the Management Board of Deutsche Bank. This group of top female executives from across the globe is working alongside the bank’s ATLAS and Women Global Leaders programs to create sustainable change in the number and experiences of women at the most senior levels of the organization. The Schneider-Lenné Cadre is actively supporting the “35 by 25” program.

In the run up to International Women’s Day senior female leaders shared some of the highs and lows of their career journeys (#ChoosetoChallenge). 

As globalization connects countries, economies and people, cultural diversity is a way of life at Deutsche Bank.

We operate in 58 countries (2020: 59) worldwide and have a workforce that includes 156 nationalities (2020: 151). We are proud to have a workforce representing a multitude of citizenships and national identities, with different ethnicities, nationalities, races, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, heritages and cultures.

We encourage everyone to bring their whole self to work, and have taken strides to ensure a more inclusive environment at Deutsche Bank. We made significant progress in advancing racial and ethnic diversity at Deutsche Bank. We continue to run a program of conversations, open-door sessions, leadership series, training and other opportunities for our employees to engage on diversity and inclusion topics. In 2021, we continued to promote a speak up culture in which our people feel encouraged to call out microaggressions and unconscious bias.

We outlined specific steps to advance our inclusive culture and our racial and ethnic diversity, beginning in the US and the UK. These steps include holding courageous conversations, improving diversity in leadership, development and advancement, and changing our hiring practices:

• Through a combination of leadership development and senior leader engagement, the bank is supporting the development and professional growth of under-represented minority talent, e.g. dbBOLD (The Black Opportunity Leadership Development program) and the Black Leadership Forum.
• The bank announced aspirational goals to increase the number of Black colleagues at the bank’s two highest title levels in the US by 50% by 2023 and increase the proportion of Black talent in our graduate programs to 10% by 2025.
• As part of the commitment to #CEOAction for Diversity & Inclusion, Deutsche Bank Americas held their first #DayofUnderstanding in April 2021. Under the theme “Making the invisible visible” all staff had the opportunity to listen, learn and share their views to continue the dialogue on belonging at work, on race, allyship and equity. Over 100 colleagues across the region stepped up to lead small-group, intra-departmental discussions and everyone had the option to affirm their own personal D&I commitment by taking the CEO Action’s I Act on Pledge.
• The dbENRICH Germany Employee Resource Group launched an internal eight-month multi-part workshop series in cooperation with external diversity experts. The Black Leadership Forum UKI and the dbENRICH Germany Network hosted a joint public webinar together with the Ethnicity Network at US asset manager Invesco Ltd. on the topic “Understanding the Changing Diversity Landscape and Fostering Allyship” that took place as part of the 2021 Black History and Global Diversity Awareness Month.

In June 2021, Deutsche Bank USA published its 2020 annual summary of its submission to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, voluntarily disclosing U.S. regional diversity statistics and made a commitment to continuing to publish the data in annual HR and Non-Financial Reports going forward, reflecting our commitment to transparency. Below is the summary of the 2021 submission. Year over year there has been improvement in the diversity of our workforce to varying degrees at all levels.

U.S. diversity statistics according to U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO-1) Commission for December 2021

In 2021, we continued our commitment for human equality, dignity, and inclusion of LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) people globally.

We have taken strong public advocacy positions, engaged in meaningful conversations with a variety of leaders around the world, and supported our LGBTQI colleagues and their loved ones. Our long-standing Ally program is one of the ways the bank supports LGBTQI people. Allies are individuals who do not necessarily self-identify as members of the LGBTQI community but who are willing to be visible champions of LGBTQI employees and their loved ones. As a result, LGBTQI employees feel affirmed and included in the workplace, are happier and more productive.

We continued to intensify our collaboration with coalitions and influential platforms, advocating a more inclusive and just world.

Together with our LGBTQI colleagues we celebrated worldwide and in various ways a mainly virtual LGBTQI Pride, due to COVID-19, supported by our internal #PositiveImpact campaign “Celebrating Pride wherever we are” and ”Together we support an open and inclusive work environment” for International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia (IDAHOTB). In the UK, we joined Trans in the City, a group of organizations working together to advance awareness and inclusion.

With a range of generations represented in our workforce, we benefit from different generational ideas and perspectives.

Often, the priorities of each generation can differ – in terms of required benefits and support for various life stages as well as the opportunities we offer our employees at every stage of their career.

We also know that different generations have different needs. Employees continue to receive support to match all circumstances, for example family responsibilities from childcare to elder care, a range of flexible working and wellbeing options and employee benefits to suit different career stages. 

By year-end 2021, 30.2% of the bank’s workforce was 49 years of age or over (2020: 29.6%), with the youngest group of employees – up to 29 years of age – accounting for 14.7% (2020: 14.9%). The average age in Germany was 46.5 years (2020: 46.1 years) which, along with the average length of company service, is significantly higher than in other regions.

in years

Note: Deutsche Bank does not employ children between the age of 0-14 years.

As an example, we facilitate cross generational collaboration and dialog that allow us to learn from each other on equal terms. Our “Reverse Mentoring Programs” driven by regional ERGs, alongside wider platform-based reverse mentoring offerings help us strengthen the exchange between different generations.

Our ERGs actively promote generation-spanning topics and events, for example such as panel discussions with senior leaders relating to future of leadership and the Future of Work.

In addition to meeting the workplace needs of all employees, such as accessible workstations and reasonable accommodations, we continue to provide accessible entrances, elevators, restrooms and parking. Flexible working options are available to those needing short-or long-­term flexibility due to health or a disability.

Through its successful and longstanding cooperation with the Association of Sheltered Workgroups (Genossenschaft der Werkstätten, GDW) in Germany, the bank also ensures a number of external jobs for people with disabilities.

Under the sponsorship of Bernd Leukert, Chief Technology, Data and Innovation Officer and Member of the Management Board, and with the support of our ERGs, we continued to strengthen our focus on people with disabilities.

• In February 2021 the “Banking on AI for Accessibility” Hackathon saw over a dozen teams compete over 24 hours to produce products which could make use of AI capabilities and the power of Google Cloud to improve the accessibility of Deutsche Bank’s products and communication tools.
• In October we launched Deutsche Bank’s first Neurodiversity Celebration Month to openly discuss the topic, engage with neurodivergent voices, to understand what it's like to be neurodivergent and give practical advice on how we can make the workplace more inclusive. The reaction from our people was incredible, with thousands of colleagues engaging with the topic and telling us they have learnt something new.  link to video
• Deutsche Bank has also been awarded the Enabling Mark (Silver); Singapore’s national-level accreditation framework by SG Enable that benchmarks and recognizes organizations for their best practices and outcomes in disability-inclusive employment.