Ethnic minority pipeline to FTSE100 boards rises; existing number falls

The pipeline for people from ethnic minorities to make it onto FTSE100 boards has improved for the first time in four years, according to executive consultancy Green Park, which has conducted a study entitled Leadership 10,000 for the fourth year running.

Its analysis of the top 10,000 roles across FTSE100 businesses found 451 ethnic minority executives in leadership roles, which includes 0.5% within the top 20 most senior roles, and 5% in the top 100 roles within a business.

However, 58% of main boards still have no ethnic minority presence; this is in the context of the government’s Parker Review, which set the target that no FTSE100 board shall be exclusively white by 2020. There is also an 18% decrease in the number of ethnic minorities holding chairman, CEO or CFO roles in the FTSE100.

Baroness McGregor-Smith, vice-chair of DRIVE (Green Park’s social enterprise) and author of Race in the workplace: The McGregor-Smith Review, said: “Despite the Leadership 10,000 report showing that every industry in the FTSE100 still needs to do better with proportional diversity, the findings provide actionable baseline data for the index to improve their leadership’s diversity, moving them closer to achieving the diversity dividend.

She said the “clear picture” the report painted means that proactive conversations at board level can be instigated to show minority communities that the issue is being taken seriously.

Top 10 FTSE companies measured by diversity of leadership

Rank	Company	Sector
1	InterContinental Hotels Group plc	Leisure
2	Standard Chartered plc	Banking and Finance
3	Unilever plc	Consumer Goods
4	Randgold Resources	Natural Resources
5	Diageo plc	Consumer Goods
6	Old Mutual plc	Banking and Finance
7	Vodafone Group plc	Telecoms
8	Next plc	Retailing
9	Informa plc	Professional and Support Services
10	Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc	Banking and Finance

Source: Green Park Leadership 10,000 (15) report

Raj Tulsiani, CEO of Green Park, said: “In a world where access to top talent from abroad may be increasingly limited, it would be foolish for major enterprises to continue to ignore talent from underrepresented groups.”

Green Park sets out three recommendations from the report:

With the UK looking to increase trade with non-EU countries, the government should increase its support for initiatives that aim to raise the number of ethnic minority corporate leaders in the UK from East Asian and African backgrounds;
Boards should renew efforts to drive diversity in succession planning. This responsibility should sit with the chairman and not be delegated; and
Major shareholders should insist that their nomination committees submit annual accounts of their efforts to recruit board members who are not white and male.