News 23rd February 2021 53 seconds read

The Financial Times | Black representation at top of FTSE 100 companies falls to zero

The Financial Times reports on Green Park's latest research showing that there are no black Chairs, Chief Executives, or Chief Financial Officers in the FTSE 100 for the first time in the six years of analysis. 

Despite public commitments to increase diversity in leadership, just 10 out of 297 leaders in top three roles have ethnic minority backgrounds, the same proportion as in 2014.

Trevor Phillips, Chair of Green Park said: “A lot of business leaders in the last nine months have been telling us they care. We need to stop hearing how much people care and how appalled they are . . . and hear a lot more at the next AGM about what they are going to do.”

Companies need to make real improvements at the top and not just hit diversity targets with very little influence in order to attract diverse talent.

Of further concern is the decrease in ethinic minority representation in the leadership pipeline over the last year which Trevor Phillips attests to mid-career people from ethnic minority backgrounds “looking up at the top 300 and concluding, based on the evidence, that I’m never going to be one of those people”.

The above is a summary of an article published in Financial Times February 3^rd 2021. For the full article, please click here.