Facing the Truth | Ethnicity, the Overlooked Dimension

Professor Binna Kandola is Senior Partner at Pearn Kandola. He is acknowledged as an expert in the topic of unconscious bias having been researching and writing about the topic for nearly 15 years. He has written extensively about bias and most recently published Racism at Work: The Danger of Indifference. His work challenges orthodox thinking in the field of diversity and inclusion.

Trevor Phillips is a writer and television producer. He is co-founder of Webber Phillips Ltd, a data analytics provider and consultancy. He divides his working life between the US and the UK, serving as the Chairman of the New York- based business leaders’ think-tank, the Center for Talent Innovation; and as President of the Council of the John Lewis Partnership, the UK’s largest private company. He is a senior board adviser to the leading executive recruitment company Green Park. He is the former (founding) chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission. He had previously been the Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality and the elected Chair of the Greater London Authority. Trevor is currently writing a prequel to his successful book Windrush. Trevor retains an active interest in the arts and music and holds several board positions in the industry. He is the recipient of several honorary doctorates; and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1998, and the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur by the French Government in 2007.

Sandra is the National Campaign Director for Business in the Community’s Race Equality campaign, a business led network of organisations from the private and public sector working and committed to race equality as part of their good business practice.  Sandra works together with the Business in the Community Race Equality board to set the agenda for race diversity in the UK as a business imperative. In January 2012, Sandra was awarded an OBE in the Queens New Year’s honours list for services to Black and Minority Ethnic People. She is the driving force behind key the groundbreaking Business in the Community Race at Work survey in partnership with YouGov. This report and the related outputs are key contributions to the UK national debate on Race Equality in the UK workplace today.

Farrah Qureshi is the Founder and CEO of Global Diversity Practice Ltd. She is recognised as one of the foremost experts on Global Diversity and Inclusion Consultancy and training. Farrah has successfully delivered, designed, managed and resourced leading diversity learning and consultancy interventions for a variety of clients spanning an impressive portfolio of corporate and public sectors, nationally and internationally. Farrah was a pioneer in developing global diversity training and consulting and has worked in and delivered to clients and delegates in over 99 countries worldwide; her work has been experienced in 120 countries. Farrah has 24 years of experience in Diversity and Inclusion, aligning her outputs to Organisation Transformation, Leadership Behaviours and Culture Change, Behavioural Economics combined with a strategic business focused approach. Farrah specializes in working at Board, CEO and Leadership levels.

Jim Islam is the Head of Group Finance at Lloyd’s of London and responsible for the Corporation of Lloyd’s global financial management, operations and reporting.  Before joining Lloyd’s in November 2016, Jim worked at Legal & General for several years in Managing Director and Finance Director roles covering insurance, pensions, savings and investment management. In these roles he built and transformed market leading and digitally enabled businesses in the UK and France while turning around financial performance.  Jim trained as an actuary with responsibility for pricing and financial reporting across a number of territories before taking on wider senior management roles.  He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (USA) and a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Elaine is currently a Senior Vice President with the role of being the UK Senior Manager Function with prescribed responsibility for CASS and the Global Head of Control for Global Services. Elaine is also the Global Head of Control for Global Services. In her regulated role as the SMF for Client Asset Regulation (“CASS”) in the UK, her main responsibility is to maintain oversight and governance of Northern Trust’s systems and controls for the protection of client assets. She has a global team located in Chicago, Bangalore and Tempe, which is responsible for ensuring that Global Services builds a strong control culture and robust control framework to mitigate and manage risk for the Northern Trust. In addition to Elaine’s Northern Trust experience, she has over 14 years of audit and regulatory assurance experience with KPMG, one of the global Big Four audit and consulting firms. Elaine is heavily involved in the Diversity and Inclusion activities within Northern Trust, including as Chair of the Northern Trust EMEA Diversity and Inclusion Council.

Tunji is a multi-award-winning leader at NSC Global a professional and managed services organization operating in over 100 countries. He previously held several senior leadership positions at tech giant Cisco during his 18-year career at the company. He is also a Non-Executive Director at Regital, an international digital marketing organisation.

Passionate about diversity in the workplace and Science & Technology (STEM). Tunji resides on the boards and councils of many organisations focused in this area including Grant Thornton, Teach First and techUK. He has founded two social enterprises, that aim to educate, excite and motivate young people globally in considering careers in science and technology.

He supports many diversity, STEM and social mobility causes and charities through his Ilesha Charitable Trust, making impact and long-term donations as well as being a patron for the autism charity CASPA.

A keen African contemporary art collector (featured in the NY Times) he was a torchbearer at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Tunji received an MBE in the Queen’s 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to young people from ethnic minorities in Science & Technology.

Albertha is a partner in PwC’s Deals business and the UK leader for the Financial Services Valuations business. She is passionate about helping clients to understand the value impact of their investment
decisions, whether it’s doing a deal, restructuring a business or dealing with hard to value assets. Her clients often describe her as “one of their team, trusted, authentic and uncompromising on quality.” Albertha set up an advisory FS business from scratch to help accelerate growth in the business.
Albertha champions diversity and inclusion in and out of PwC. She is the Diversity, Culture & Inclusion leader for PwC’s Transactions Services business and a member of PwC’s Talent and Diversity Council, working with PwC Executive Board members and People leaders to shape the PwC D&I agenda. She is also a sponsoring partner for PwC’s Multicultural Business Network.
Albertha is a CFA Charter holder, a qualified accountant and holds an MBA from Manchester Business School. Albertha was voted 2017 Financial Services Leader of the year by BBBA and was recognised in the FT EMpower Top 100 ethnic minority leaders list for 2017 and 2018.