Building better boards: Championing diversity and ensuring equality
We as a professional body are committed to supporting the sector with professional standards, but in particular championing diversity at all levels. This event explored good practice already in existence, but also importantly discussed the challenges for the sector in ensuring we have diversity across our organisations, but also are representative of our communities. In a continuation from our first Building better boards event, Mark Brown, CEO of the Dolphin Index expanded on how boards cannot live by governance alone, exploring how having diversity on boards can drive better decision making, and enable greater success.
Gera Patel, senior consultant at Campbell Tickell brings close to 20 years’ experience of working in and with a wide range of organisations. Now sitting on the consultancy side, Gera provided her insights on how a board’s recruitment and succession planning can be improved, opening themselves up to the wealth of talent available from across the diversity spectrum.
Mushtaq Khan, currently interim CEO at Housing Diversity Network also brought his lived experience of rising to senior roles within the housing sector. Housing Diversity Network are one of the leading organisations that help organisations to be better. We heard his take on where the sector is right now, and what are the practical measures that boards can take to change things for the better, encouraging more diversity at all levels.
Progress Housing Group were one of the first organisations to try and create a board development programme for candidates who perhaps didn’t have direct experience sitting on a board, but aspired to do so. We heard about their programme, the successes it had, but also where there is learning to be had in how programmes like this can be rolled out more widely and ensure that the talent being generated does then result it greater diversity actually being on the boards at the end.
