Powered By Diversity

At Powered By Diversity we've been so heartened to see our customers *doubling down* on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) work in response to the direct attack beginning in the USA. Despite the redoubling of efforts amongst our customers, we don't doubt that there will be some companies in the UK in which EDI is challenged - what do you think the main challenges will be for you this year? If you can't see an option that fits, feel free to comment below. If you feel safer responding confidentially over email please do so via [email protected].

Celebrate - Awareness - Learning - Allyship

Brackendale Consulting get it - meritocracy is not new - in fact it's how we got into the mess we've all been trying to solve for the last 8 years in the first place. Quoting our founder Cat Wildman's recent post on Merit in their piece they make the very good point that where there's people being judged on merit, there's bias.

Where is the equity in private equity? In her latest piece for Private Equity News, Brackendale Consulting's CEO Fay Margo considers the growing impact of corporate DEI rollbacks on private markets across both the USA and Europe. Since Trump's return to the White House, the concept of MEI (Merit, Excellence, Intelligence) is increasingly being presented as an alternative to DEI. But this perspective implies that diversity and merit are mutually exclusive. Fay highlights the data that has long supported the benefits of diverse teams within private equity - driven in part by LP expectation and the proven successes of diverse teams. She explores the broader implications of widespread rollbacks and whether European LP investors are giving in to pressure from across the pond or pushing back against this shift. Thank you to Private Equity News and Seb McCarthy for allowing us to spotlight such a pertinent issue. Those subscribed can access the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eJDFYX_B A shout out to Cat Wildman, Founder and CEO of Powered By Diversity, quoted in this piece, for her compelling insights. #PrivateEquity #DEI #PR #Communications

Our #IWD call to action: Do something physically, don't just write about it! Something as little as sponsoring a girls football kit can inspire and make a difference! Let's be the difference we want to see! #WhatATeam #PoweredByDiversity

📣 It’s just 3 years since the famous Dispatches: Black Maternity Scandal documentary aired on Channel 4 in the UK and the maternal death rate for women from Asian ethnic backgrounds remains two times higher than that of White women. 😡 Even more worrying, Black women remain three times more likely to die compared to White women. If it was white mothers and babies there would be outrage and it’d make the 10 o’clock news, right?? 💥 This International Women's Day, Nkechi be raising awareness about how the feminist movement has decentred racially marginalised women over the years and what we can ALL do to be more intersectional in our approach and to change the narrative. It’s not for the faint hearted - so if you are in touch with your divine feminine energy this International Women’s Day, come along and be part of the change, you want to see! Details: Mon, Mar 10 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM GMT https://lnkd.in/e3Fik5i6 Sign up today. Cat Wildman Nkechi Allen Dawson Karen Blake Ingrid Tingle #CulturalCalendar Powered By Diversity

We love the learning and sharing on LinkedIn. Yasar Ahmad thank you for this wonderful post. 📚 Learning 👂Listening 👄Asking Questions 🦸♂️ Allyship 🤔 Being positively curious Cat Wildman Karen Blake Ingrid Tingle Lisa Cater

Following on from yesterday's post about how EDI is going nowhere my second reason it's not going anywhere is *How would you even BEGIN to roll back EDI?* Because the only kind of EDI that can be "rolled back" is rubbish EDI. Rubbish EDI looks like a boring, corporate video about why EDI matters, a few awareness sessions in the year and a meaningless statement on the company website. Maybe a dusty policy. Rubbish EDI definitely *should* be rolled back. Roll it back immediately! REAL DIVERSITY is focussing on bringing in people that think differently to one another so that (amongst other things): ⚽ Instead of creating a postage stamp sized batch of ideas you can create a football pitch sized one.  🧠 Instead of being able to get inside the minds of a tiny sliver of customers you can get into the minds of a huge wedge of them.  😬 Instead of releasing something into the public domain which hits the headlines for all the wrong reasons, those things get caught early, in-house by people on your team who say "we can't put that out". Bringing in 'diversity' with no idea why, definitely should be rolled back, because those hires will enter your business and either be miserable about the non inclusive culture - or exit right out again. Costing you money.  REAL EQUITY is focussing on making sure your employees are on a level playing field because if you don't, they won't be able to work to their full strengths. 👨💼 👨💼 👨💼 Instead of making everyone work in exactly the same way regardless of whether that makes their job 10x harder or not.   💡 Instead of not being open to trying a new idea to help one person that actually ends up being amazing for everyone (revolving doors, text messages, wheels on suitcases...)  🚉 Instead of making everyone come into the office 5 days a week regardless of whether that makes half your workforce immediately get on LinkedIn to look for different jobs - or become completely resentful and unproductive. REAL INCLUSION is recognising people for who they are and what they bring - and wanting more of it. 👬 Instead of moulding everyone into a carbon copy of [their manager, the CEO] in order to get ahead in the company.  🍪 Instead of "hiring for fit" regardless of whether it takes new hires 50% of their energy being a professional actor to maintain the front.  👀 Instead of making everyone get to their outcomes in exactly the same way regardless of whether their way would be way better, faster and potentially lead to better outcomes. This is REAL EDI and it's almost impossible to "roll back". Plus those who are doing it would never want to, because they have an engaged and enthusiastic workforce who want to stay at the company and continue to give it the competitive edge. 🤷♀️ Thoughts on reason 2 welcome. Lisa Cater Dawn Morton-Young Alice Pelton Michelle Gyimah Clare Willetts Dave Williams Karen Blake Lianne Baker Stacey Heanue Leon Walker LL.B Grace M. Kevin Withane (FRSA) Richard Sanders

Quite a few people recently (not from the EDI world) have been asking me if I'm freaking out about what's going on in the USA with regards to EDI - fair, considering that I run an EDI company (Powered By Diversity). There are three reasons I'm completely calm because I know that EDI is here to *stay*. Here's reason 1 (I will post reason 2 & 3 another time because otherwise this post will be too long :-) 1) What's happening in the USA is a temporary backlash driven by a small but very powerful group of people who view EDI as a personal threat. The reason I am not worried, is that this group is driven by capitalism and they'll soon see that money walks. UK businesses are wise enough to know that not only is antiracism the right thing to do, they also know that the Black British community has a spending power of 300 billion pounds and together, the Black, Asian and Multi-Ethnic consumer segments have a whopping £4.5 billion *disposable* income to spend every year. UK businesses are keeping focus on accessibility because it's good to include everyone, but they also know that the spending power of disabled people and their households in the UK is estimated to be around £274 billion per year. Yes they are holding events for women and talking about menopause because it needs awareness, but they also know that women aged 40–60 spend £92bn annually, plus, 93% of them make most or all of the purchasing decisions in their households. That's just the spending power of 4 groups. There are a lot more that will take their cash elsewhere if companies start copying some of the wild behaviour that's happening in America. So that's reason 1 why I am not worried that what's going on in the US will happen here. Feel free to comment - I'm always here for the conversation. Lisa Cater Dawn Morton-Young Ian Timbrell Jo Major (She/her) Virginia Méndez Mesón Suraiya Rasheed Andy Ayim MBE Jo Brassington Alice Hargreaves Mike Mansfield Alice Kinder Veronica Llorca-Smith Solène Anglaret Leon Walker LL.B Data: The Black Pound | bit.ly/3EHLfPh The Purple Pound | bit.ly/3EvRllY Women over 40 | bit.ly/3CLXkT8 The Pink pound | bit.ly/419pgd5 The image below shows the data I gave above but on a white brick wall in more of an infographic style.

Take a load off your plate and plug into Cultural Calendar Club today - your year of live EDI events: sorted for just £2000 for the year (limited time only). Check out some tasters here: https://lnkd.in/e-KUjc4C or get in touch via [email protected] today. #Events #Equity #Inclusion #Speakers #Calendar #CulturalCalendar #InternationalWomensDay Lisa Cater