106: State of Black and Ethnic Minority leaders in Board rooms and the C-Suite: Barbara Philips, Chair REEB, PRCA a

ShownotesAfter the initial high of 2020/21 DEIB/A or whatever you would like to call it, is facing rough going - budgets are being cut, dedicated DEI staff are being sacked or are leaving in droves. Organisations are using the cost of living crisis and economic slowdown as an excuse which doesn’t really make sense - are they easily expendable? What has not helped is that people have mistaken the high volume of talk(chatter) for action, all that virtue signalling and diversity washing has resulted in conversation overload and fatigue.I recently interviewed Barbara Philips Chair of the Race and Ethnicity Equity Board (REEB) PRCA about the state of representation of the the ‘global majority’ (Black and ethnic minorities in common parlance) in the C-suite and in Boardrooms in our industry The first question I asked Barbara was if like the ‘State of the Nation’ report (social mobility), we should have a state of Board Representation in the UK and the rest of the world? And if it is time to hold companies accountable through transparency on data for progress or lack of - because data doesn’t lie (Actually it does occasionally when it is used selectively for greenwashing).Fortunately, in 2023 no one is contesting the reality. The more important question now is how do we increase representation especially considering the industry’s reputation for homophily (birds of a feather etc.) on one side and the broken rung, or the glass ceiling that talent groups from global majority constantly have to face. And the absolute reality that we are not promoting nor nurturing enough leaders through the ranks. At REEB we are determined to spotlight the vacuum, the lack of opportunities for talented leaders and the absence of creativity and imagination by the industry on how it can engage and nurture talent who can rightly take their seat at the high table or in the boardroom. We also spoke about