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Hello and welcome to the programme.

Businesses from a variety of backgrounds have watched the Black Lives Matter protests in recent months

resolving to take note.

In boardrooms, it's been easy to pay lip service to issues of racial injustice over the years,

but the brutal killing of George Floyd

sparked an appreciation for those that might have felt diversity wasn't their department,

that something isn't quite right and it needs to change. But what exactly? Good intentions have

been around for decades, but have still not led to the change that many people want. So today we want to ask what the business response should be,

what are the problems and the solutions for companies

that want to promote opportunity for black Asian and other minority ethnic groups,

and what are the benefits?

We can't pretend that this is all uncontroversial.

There are concepts in critical race theory such as white privilege

and white fragility and unconscious bias training that are not universally accepted as useful.

But our goal is to find some practical ideas for business, so plenty to explore with my expert

guests. But before we meet them, we thought it might be useful

just to hear a bit of personal testimony

of the barriers and how to overcome them.

So I spoke to one of the most high-profile

black business leaders in the UK, Karen Blakett.

She's the UK boss of the ads giant WPP.

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