Parker review update - making progress in ethnicity representation in the FTSE 350

Yesterday I was fortunate to join a call, hosted by EY, where the Parker Review provided an update on ethnicity representation in the FTSE 350.

It's great to see that further progress has been made in the last 12 months against the original commitments: 

• "One by 2021" target for all FTSE 100 boards to have at least one director from a minority ethnic background by December 2021
• The Review also set a similar "One by 2024" target for all FTSE 250 boards

In summary, the key highlights over the last 12 months are:

• In the FTSE 100, there were ethnic minority directors in 96% of Boards at the end of 2022, compared with 89% in 2021 and 18% of all director positions in the FTSE 100 were filled by ethnic minorities (16% in 2021)
• Given that over 70% of FTSE 100 Board members are NEDs, it is no surprise that majority of positions held by ethnic minorities were as NEDs (159 out of 190)
• In the FTSE 250, 67% of those organisations had ethnic minority directors (55% in 2021)

Moving forward the Parker Review will be introducing 2 new commitments / initiatives (and in addition to the above, these will be tracked annually):

• Targets for Senior Management in all FTSE 350 organisations – to include Exco and Exco minus 1, organisations to set a target to achieve by end of 2027 (and this to be confirmed by the end of this year)
• All of the above commitments to be extended to 50 of the largest private organisations in the UK; Ineos, Deloitte, EY and John Lewis have already confirmed their participation

It's heartening to see the extension of the commitments to larger privately owned businesses across the UK.  At AMS we have already implemented all of the commitments being proposed by the Parker Review.  We set our initial commitment in 2020 to be delivered by the end of 2023.  Over the next few months we will be recommitting to a new 3 year plan to take us through to the end of 2026.

I'd love to hear how your organisation is committing to ethnicity representation.