Diversity at the top
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why is the black community still so poorly represented in leadership positions? We speak to the changemakers who are doing something about it. Kike Onawinde used to represent Great Britain in the javelin before setting up the Black Young Professionals Network, which is all about connecting ambitious future leaders. Jean-Marc Laouchez is the President of the Management Consultancy firm Korn Ferry Institute in Paris, who says the main reason why things are not changing is because of the established power structure. Abdul Karim Abdullah, is a clinical trial manager for a pharmaceutical company in New York. He founded the culture festival, Afrochella, to celebrate African culture, food, music, art and fashion. Najah Roberts is the founder and CEO of Crypto Blockchain Plug in Los Angeles. It’s one of the first African American owned over the counter cryptocurrency exchanges in the US. She says a big problem for African Americans is that they have been prevented us from acquiring wealth and that virtual money could change all of that.(Picture of boardroom meeting. Picture credit: Getty Images).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Tamerson Ford. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.2 | Today, we're asking the question, why is there still so little diversity at the top? |
| 0:12.4 | We've all heard the term representation matters, and it does. Imagine being the only black person in your organisation. |
| 0:18.7 | How do you envision yourself rising to the top of the |
| 0:21.3 | ranks? You know, some people have described it as concrete ceilings. That's how hard it is. |
| 0:24.9 | And we hear from one leader in the finance world about how she thinks cryptocurrency, of all |
| 0:30.0 | things, could help change that. Cryptocurrency and blockchain is fair. It has no respect of |
| 0:37.3 | color, age, sexual preference. And I really found out that |
| 0:42.2 | finally we have something in our community that could possibly help us close the wealth gap. |
| 0:48.5 | That's in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:53.4 | I want to start this programme with a few figures. |
| 0:56.8 | Out of all of the chief executives running America's top 500 companies, the Fortune 500, |
| 1:03.2 | just 1% are black. |
| 1:06.2 | In the UK, there's not a single black chairperson, CEO or CFO in any of the top 100 companies, the Futsi 100. |
| 1:15.7 | The statistics are stark. |
| 1:18.4 | Hello, my name is Kiket on a window. |
| 1:20.6 | I am the founder and CEO of BYP Network, but you can call me Kike. |
| 1:24.7 | Kiki is hoping to change that. |
| 1:27.4 | She used to represent Great Britain in the javelin |
| 1:29.7 | before setting up the Black Young Professionals Network, or BYP. |
| 1:34.1 | She's dedicated her career to improving diversity |
| 1:37.0 | across the world's top companies. |
... |
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