The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) under the leadership of president Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE is pushing for greater diversity and inclusivity among British businesses. The CBI Board on Tuesday, 1 December announced that it was close to achieving a 50/50 gender split; and 22% from a BAME background. The CBI’s Chairs’ Committee has also increased its gender split, with the proportion of women rising from 32% to 45%.
This comes as the Lord Bilimoria is already spearheading the Change the Race Ratio Campaign. It aims to increase racial and ethnic participation in British business with 35 employers already signed up, from all sectors and parts of the UK. The campaign’s ask is four commitments including: increase racial and ethnic representation at board level, increasing targets for racial and ethnic diversity in senior leadership team, disclosing ethnicity pay gap and publishing a clear action plan and where diversities can thrive. Lord Bilimoria has previously pointed out that lack of ethnic diversity in business is costing the UK £24 billion a year in lost GDP.
“Firms with the lowest gender and ethnic diversity in their executive teams are 27 per cent less likely to be profitable. In the case of ethnic and cultural diversity, we know top-quartile companies outperform those in the bottom quartile by 36 per cent in profitability. And when employees feel included in the workplace their ability to innovate increases by 83 per cent,” he said.
