Race Equality webinar, held on Thursday 21 March 2024.

This webinar covered:

• The power of sponsorship. 
• The importance of creating an inclusive and authentic environment at senior levels.
• The role of allyship.
• The value of young senior leaders in driving cultural change.
• The role of the local community and staff networks in tackling race inequality.

Find the slides here.

Hear Cheryl Samuels discuss her career journey and lived experiences; highlighting the significant impact of leaders who used sponsorship as a tool to enable her development, progression and to achieve her goals. Cheryl also invited colleagues to reflect on the following questions:

1. What informal and formal support have you accessed?
2. Who stepped forward and recognised your value?
3. Who gave you stretch opportunities?
4. What can you do to extend the ladder to reduce the intersectional racial disparities we see in the workforce?

Hear Peter Molyneux discuss his time at Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust, including how they built a more diverse board through working with staff networks and local groups. He shared that to create the right environment for a diverse and authentic board you need to create a space to discuss complex issues, ensure psychological safety and encourage speaking up. Peter reflected on the importance of curiosity when driving culture change, and that it is what you tolerate, what you call out, and what you encourage that makes behavioural differences. Peter shared two quotes for further reflection:

• Dr John Amaechi OBE: 'There's an implication for the things that clever people choose not to know.'
• Audre Lorde: 'It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognise, accept, and celebrate those differences.'

Hear Ruchi Singh share her journey to leadership, including her ability to think differently having come from outside the healthcare sector, the need to maintain courage to take risks, and curiosity to ask and challenge why things are done as they are. She also reflected on her involvement of working in and talking about race, and how this often meant helping those around her understand and see their privilege. Finally, Ruchi talks about her drive for young people and setting up the young non-executive director (NED) programme for the Seacole group.

Listen to the panel Q&A, where delegates ask the following questions:

• Is there support to make recruitment a truly blind process?
• Is there diverse representation for executive directors at Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust?
• How do you attract diverse talent for senior leadership roles?
• What accountability measures are in place to measure racial insensitivity at senior levels?

Chair: 

Sim Scavazza – non-executive director, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (North West London Acute Provider Collaborative), and acting chair – Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West integrated care board

Panellists:

Cheryl Samuels – chief people officer, Evelina London's Women's and Children's Services, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

Peter Molyneux – chair, Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust 

Ruchi Singh – member and Young NEDs programme lead, The Seacole Group.