There Are Now 12 Ethnic Minority Chief Execs Leading The UK’s Top 100 Companies

The UK’s biggest companies are slowly adding more diversity to their top roles.

The Parker Review examined 350 major UK businesses. It found increased representation of people from ethnic minority backgrounds but noted there is still room for improvement.

The Parker Review

The Parker Review discovered that there are now 12 ethnic minority chief executives and seven Chairs in the FTSE 100, which lists the top 100 companies in the UK. 

This is an improvement from seven CEOs and six Chairs in 2022. 

However, in the bigger picture, only 13% of the top bosses in these firms are from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

This is less than the 18% of people in the UK who said they were from non-white backgrounds in the 2021 census.

In 2015, the government initiated this review due to the underrepresentation of individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds in significant corporate roles.

The 2023 update demonstrates that the situation is improving in the FTSE 100.  Currently, 19% of all directors are from ethnic minority groups, a slight increase from the previous year. 

Of the 186 ethnic minority directors, over half (56%) were Asian, 16% were Black, 8% were Mixed/ Multiple Ethnicity, and a fifth were Other Minority ethnic.

The smaller firms in the FTSE 250 are improving too. The review noted that 175 of these companies have ethnic diversity on their boards, up from 148.

Looking Forward

Looking ahead, 48 leading firms aim to have 17% of their senior management from ethnic minority backgrounds by 2027. 

This goal varies widely between companies, from 5% to 45%, depending on the diversity of the area they operate in.

“While this year’s Parker Review shows that progress is being made to increase the representation of ethnic minority talent, there’s still more to do,” Hywell Bell, UK chair of accountancy firm EY, told the BBC.