Green Park are proud to be one of the early signatories of Change The Race Ratio

Green Park are proud to be one of the early signatories of Change The Race Ratio, a campaign to increase racial and ethnic participation in British businesses.

Joining over 110 signatories across 30 sectors, Green Park are pleased to join other prominent organisations and senior leaders in pledging their commitment to turn promises of racial equity into action.

The Change The Race Ratio campaign closely aligns with Green Park’s own values. Championing diversity and inclusion since our inception, our mission is to help organisations to think differently about talent attraction, retention, and inclusion. At 55% female and 32% ethnic minority, Green Park consistently outperform our industry in the placement of diverse leaders at board and executive level. In 2021, we placed an ethnic minority leader on a board every four days and our aim is to make this an everyday occurrence by 2025.

As a Change The Race Ratio signatory, Green Park are deepening their commitment to progress change through greater transparency, inclusion, action and accountability. This includes four key commitments to change, as laid out by Change the Race Ratio:

Four Commitments To Change

1. Set and publish targets for racial and ethnic minority representation on boards.

• The campaign provides a platform to show our commitment to the Parker Review, as well as providing a peer group for business leaders to work together to understand the actions needed to increase representation in the boardroom.

2. Set and publish targets for racial and ethnic minority representation at an executive level and minus-one pipeline.

• Action on board representation alone won’t deliver change; we must also increase racial ethnic minority representation at leadership and talent pipeline levels.

3. Publish a Race Action Plan and Ethnicity Pay Gap Report within two years of joining.

• This level of transparency shows that Green Park is serious about progressing racial and ethnic minority representation. By reporting on ethnicity pay gap, we are encouraging greater action and accountability on the inclusion of racial and ethnic minority talent throughout the talent pipeline, including in senior roles.

4. Create an inclusive culture that allows talent to thrive.

• Our culture is more than our workforce. We must put processes in place that enable us to reflect the communities we serve and attract, retain and promote racial and ethnic minority talent.

As a signatory of Change The Race Ration, we are calling for other businesses to set and publish clear targets for greater racial and ethnic diversity in senior leadership positions and to create a culture that enables diverse thinking and talent to thrive.

This is something we have supported and encouraged for many years as evidenced by the publication of our Green Park Business Leaders Index. Committed to improving diversity and increasing transparency and accountability in the corporate sector, we have been consistently publishing statistically validated data on the gender and ethnocultural composition of FTSE leadership. We are also proud co-founders of the community interest company Race Equality Matters, launching  Race Equality Week which takes place every February and unites the UK in activity to drive race equality in the workplace. Providing free resources to over 3000 organisations, Race Equality Matters has also been behind wide-reaching campaigns to increase inclusion, such as the #MyNameIs campaign, calling for the phonetic spelling of names to tackle the common microaggression of name mispronunciation.

Why being a signatory to Change the Race Ratio is important to Green Park

Green Park’s Business Leaders Index 2021 found that despite some progress on diversity in the upper echelons of Britain’s top companies, ethnic minorities and females are being side-lined into functions which are less likely routes to the C-Suite than those travelled by their white, male counterparts. And despite the outpouring of support for racial equality following the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, our research found that for the first time in six years, there were no black leaders in C-suite roles at FTSE 100 companies. The fact is that the pace of change isn’t moving at the same rate as the narrative and the Change the Race Ratio is an important step towards driving action and not just words.

Take action now and join the Change The Race Ratio Campaign.