Leaders for Race Equity

Take decisive action to increase racial and ethnic participation in UK businesses by creating cross-company learning partnerships. 

Run in partnership between the Change the Race Ratio and the 30% Club, and guided by inclusion and diversity specialists, Moving Ahead, this nine-month programme offers two impactful learning opportunities:   

  1. CEOs are partnered with a talented executive level businessperson (ExCo -1 to -3), from an underrepresented minority racial and ethnic background. Through these two-way learning partnerships, carefully overseen and matched by Moving Ahead, leaders will come to understand and connect to the lived experiences of others outside their professional networks and echo chambers, with the with the aim of effecting systemic change. 

  2. Cross-company listening circles bring opportunities for deeper insight and discussion on key topics that will support learning and development of stronger racial and ethnic diversity agendas. 

The Leaders for Race Equity cross-company development programme invites senior participants from 20 companies to come together in a shared learning community with the goal of developing CEOs to be better allies through one-to-one learning partnerships with minority racial and ethnic talent.  

CEOs are empowered to drive and deliver change in their companies through listening circles and events, attended by other senior participants in the company, that explore key topics to support the development of stronger racial and ethnic diversity agendas. 

Objectives

To convene and support businesses to make progress together. 

To enable leaders to connect to the lived experiences of a diverse ExCo -1 to -3 talent pipeline. 

To create psychologically safe spaces for CEOs, ExCo –1 to –3 talent pipeline and HRD/DE&I to openly share their ambitions, vulnerabilities and ideas.  

Enable and empower diverse talent by providing access to a community of CEOs. 

Real, tangible benefits

  • Access to the ExCo pipeline so that they can develop an understanding of the challenges facing the ExCo pipeline.

    Shine a light on personal blind spots.

    Confidence and capability to talk about race.

    Empowered to influence, drive, promote and deliver genuine change.  Explore challenges (as leaders and at an organisational level) and create clarity on a future strategy and messaging for race, ethnicity, and wider inclusion.

    Develop better allies and opportunities to use their power in a sponsorship capacity. 

  • Provide access to and the opportunity to develop connections with those at the C- Suite Level. 

    Exposure to strategic thinking at the top level.

    Being a thinking partner to influence change for their own company and across other companies.

    Personal development growth and career strategy.

  • Equip with a clear plan for next steps to keep momentum and drive forward change within their organisations.

  • “The programme provides a great opportunity for me to reflect regularly on how to ensure AMS is as fully inclusive an environment as possible. Having Yasharn Smith as my thought partner makes it even better.”

    David Leigh, CEO AMS

  • I’m proud that National Grid is taking part in LfRE… It’s clear that companies need to do more to address the lack of diversity at the top, and I urge more companies to join us in changing the race ratio.

    John Pettigrew, CEO, National Grid 

  • “This programme brings D&I up the agenda more, compared to some of the others. The mix of participants involved in the programme bring different perspectives from different experiences. They were not all in agreement, which is fine.”

    Amra Mirza, Natwest

Want to be a part of this programme?

Moving Ahead will provide full assistance during onboarding to help identify the right participants. Find out more about how Moving Ahead can help you select your development partner by emailing race.equity@moving-ahead.org