The number of Black leaders at the top of Britain’s biggest companies has fallen to zero, despite years of public commitments from government and business to increase ethnic diversity in leadership ranks.
Research compiled by executive recruitment and diversity consultancy agency Green Park, released today in conjunction with the UK’s first-ever Race Equality Week, reveals that for the first time in six years of analysis, there are no Black Chairs, CEOs or CFOs in the FTSE 100.
While the numbers of most other minority ethnic groups in these top roles have increased by a small amount since its first report in 2014; the number of Black leaders at FTSE 100 companies stalled, then dropped to zero, according to the early findings of Green Park’s Business Leaders Index 2021. As a result, only 10 of 297 leaders (3.4%) in the top three roles have ethnic minority backgrounds; a figure that has remain unchanged since Green Park began its FTSE analysis in 2014.
At FTSE 100 board and executive committee level, the percentage of Black Executive Directors and Non-Executive Directors (1.1%) has also fallen since Green Park’s first analysis (1.3%). This compares unfavourably with increased percentages for other minority ethnic board members (Muslim, Hindu, Sikh,Chinese and East Asian) across the same period.
DEPRESSING PROSPECTS
The prospects for future increases in Black representation at the highest levels of British business also look depressingly slim; with numbers in the leadership pipeline decreasing over the past year from 1.4% to 0.9%, reveals the report. This drop in the pipeline is reflected across ethnic minority groups more widely, with ethnic minority representation falling over the past year from 10.7% to 9%.
Commenting on the findings, Trevor Phillips, Chair of Green Park, stated: “These figures put some flesh on the bone of last year’s protests. We know there is no shortage of qualified candidates to fill these roles if companies are willing to look. Yet the snowy peaks of British business remain stubbornly white. We cannot go back to business as usual. It is time that shareholders, consumers and employees start questioning whether Black Lives Matter is just rhetoric rather than reality. That is why we have put our backing behind Race Equality Week. Corporate leaders need to stop telling us how much they care and do something to show us that black lives really do matter.”
RACE EQUALITY WEEK
The figures released today are an early insight into the findings of the Green Park Business Leaders Index 2021; an analysis of the gender and ethnocultural diversity of FTSE leadership. They have been released to mark the UK’s first ever Race Equality Week, with hundreds of organisations and individuals uniting in activity to tackle the challenges faced by ethnic minorities in the workplace.
Co-founded by Green Park and The Collaboratory (following the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 and disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on ethnic minority communities), the Race Equality Week movement and slogan – ‘Let’s not go back to normal’ – are further validated by today’s findings. The movement’s co-founders are calling for organisations to act now to tackle issues facing race equality; not only because it is the fair and moral thing to do, but because the success of British business post Brexit relies on it.
DIVERSITY WINDOW-DRESSING
As part of the organisation’s contribution to Race Equality Week, Green Park is proposing to tackle a crucial issue for many candidates for senior positions; the belief that they may be recruited as “diversity window-dressing”, yet excluded from key decisions; such as major appointments or acquisitions being taken by a leadership team which is all male or all-white. The company’s board has instructed that under the “Green Park Rule” any spending decision above 1% of turnover must be made by a diverse group; if this is not possible, the fact should always be reported to the board and noted in the company’s annual report.
Over 1,700 organisations have already signed up to the UK’s first Race Equality Week, confirmed the organiser Race Equality Matters. See the article below on how to get involved and take much-needed action for change.
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