Our Commitment to Diversity

Our purpose, to find and develop leaders that shape a better society, drives everything we do. Championing diverse, representative leadership that reflects and benefits communities is part of our DNA. Over 65% of our placements are from underrepresented groups and our own internal diversity exceeds national averages on every measure. But there is stil more to do. Doing more, and not just saying more, lies at the heart of our commitment.

Diversity embedded into our process

We champion under-represented groups and we recognise that greater progress is needed still. We place over 100 Black, Asian and other minority ethnic leaders in senior Executive and Non-Executive roles (17%* of all appointees) every year. Women make up 53%* of our senior appointments, those with a disability 8% and the LGBTQ+ community 6%* of appointments.

Using our in-depth public sector insight, data analytics and in-house team of occupational psychologists, we do more than just help clients find candidates from a wide talent pool. We advise clients through every step of the recruitment process on how to remove barriers and facilitate candidates from all backgrounds.

The Insight Programme

Identifying and encouraging high quality candidates from a broad range of professional backgrounds to become Non-Executive Directors or Trustees on high-performing Boards is a challenge that is faced within all the sectors GatenbySanderson serves.

To help address this challenge, and as part of our own contribution to build talent and equip candidates to be future ready, we have created Insight at BoardBank. The programme provides mentoring support and first-hand exposure to the Board environment to aspiring Non-Executive Directors and Trustees from under -represented groups in our Health, Housing and Not for Profit sectors

Our Internal D&I

We also challenge our own organisation; we introduced full agile working in 2019 to create a more inclusive environment as well as investing in greater mental health awareness with 8% of our staff becoming Mental Health First Aiders, and all members of our staff have received unconscious bias training.

We are signed up to the Hampton Alexander voluntary code of conduct for Executive Search firms, are Disability Confident and members of Inclusive Employers.

We are thankful to colleagues who have shared personal experiences and helped us learn more, understand better and be more forthright in asking the difficult questions. These views are shared and debated within our internal affinity groups, who report back to the Exec each month. We will continue to use the voice of our people and their expertise to shape our D&I strategy and hold us all to account.

CSR

Our active CSR programme helps to support the work that we do across the business to address the opportunities provided by the issues of equality, diversity and inclusion. From our pro bono Insight at BoardBank programme, to providing our colleagues with the time and opportunity to volunteer with schools in the communities in which we live and work, we see CSR as a key part of how we promote equality, diversity and inclusion as key drivers of our core purpose to shape a better society.