The Guardian: Top UK firms failing to increase boardroom diversity, study shows

The Green Park Leadership 10,000, an annual report analysing gender and ethnocultural diversity in the FTSE 100 top leadership posts, has found a decline in the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME)  Executives and Non-Executives, decreasing from 9% in 2018 down to 7.4% in 2019. Meanwhile top 3 leaders, Chairs, CEOs and CFO’s have stagnated at 3.3%.

The study also found that the pipeline for BAME leadership had stalled, raising significant concerns about the prospects for any future improvement at Board and Executive level. The statistics are worrying and show a requisite for firms to appoint Chief Diversity Officers or face the risk of losing talent to global competitors.

The Parker Review, which sets out to improve the ethnic and cultural diversity of Board members, set a target to have at least one BAME Board-level Director in all FTSE 100 companies by 2021.

Green Parks report showed an increase to 28.8% for female representation at Board level yet a stall in BAME representation, particularly homegrown talent. BAME leaders that were born and educated in outside of the UK include, Rakesh Kapoor, CEO of Reckitt Benkiser,  Dr B R Shetty, Joint Non-Executive Chairman of   NMC Health and Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival.  

The above is a summary of an article published in The Guardian 4/12/19. For the full Guardian article, please click here.