Change the Race Ratio - Progress Report 2023

Today, Change the Race Ratio Campaign have released their 2023 Progress Report. AMS is delighted to support the campaign and we are heartened to see the progress that has been made in the last 12 months, specifically:

• All FTSE350 signatories have at least one racial or ethnic minority director on their board
• 83% of all respondents have at least one racial or ethnic minority director on their board and racial and ethnic minority representation stands at an average of 14% in these companies
• 74% of respondents have set racial and ethnic minority targets for exco and exco minus one, with targets ranging from 10 - 20%. These are to be achieved on average by 2025
• Racial and ethnic minority representation at ExCo and ExCo minus one in FTSE350 respondents has increased by just under 25% compared to the 12 months prior, and currently stands at 10.2%
• The number of respondents to set Black representation targets for exco and exco minus one has doubled compared to the 12 months prior
• 8 out of 10 respondents are either currently reporting or plan to report their ethnicity pay gaps this year   

We established our Ethnicity Action Plan over 3 years ago as a way of delivering greater race equity in our business.  In that time, we have:

• Increased ethnicity representation in our global leadership team from 4% to 15.5% and we now have one ethnically diverse Board member
• We have introduced reverse mentoring, sponsorship and development programmes to better support our under-represented talent and we have implemented the Rooney Rule when hiring at a senior level
• We have also established 2 new employees resource groups - Black Employee Network & Juntos Podemos (Hispanic network) and 2 affinity groups - South Asian and Pacific Islanders. These groups have become critical friends to the business
• We will produce our 3rd ethnicity pay gap report this year, for our UK region

Our work is not done and we are in the process of finalising our new 3 year ethnicity action plan to take us through to 2026.  We will continue to work with Change the Race Ratio  and other external campaign groups to drive for further change in race equity.

On December 7th we will be holding our final DEI Knowledge Exchange Webinar of the year  - Beyond race & ethnicity: How have organizations progressed in the last three years?.  If you'd like to register to for this virtual webinar please follow this link