at the time that we weren’t doing anything to connect the LGBTQ+ members within our student and alumni body with each other. When we founded our Pride@MBS community, we wanted to ensure it was for the LGBTQ+ community and straight allies. I think that was important; not building a silo, but actually getting more people involved and having a conversation. “Also, we saw that when we had Black students in the classroom, they often were the only person of colour. Therefore, we wanted to go beyond diversity to achieve belonging. We held a Black@MBS session featuring some Black members of our network on the panel and had a very honest conversation with other students and alumni. “You could see in some cases that people hesitated to ask questions about race and Black Lives Matter, for example. But there was an open exchange of experiences and the participants said they valued the new perspectives they got from that evening. I think opportunities that allow discussions are important in order to foster this feeling of belonging and understanding each other within the whole business school framework.” Sankalp Chaturvedi “The challenges we face include some of the programmes attracting disparity. On all programmes we have a minimum 50/50 target when it comes to gender and on aggregate we achieve that, but in some specific programmes we struggle to reach that target. “From the faculty side of things, we face challenges when it comes to getting people from the Black community coming in to teach, so there is a market-level push that is required. We are collaborating with some US institutions that have done work in this area. If we can create something similar as a package for the UK and Europe, we might be able to do something at market level in creating the pipeline itself. “The second challenge involves fighting mindsets, this sense of ‘It might be you, but it’s not me’. For students,
like with research or teaching; it needs to be embedded into our workload model, with dedicated funding that can be used to invest in a diversity game or research. “Data is also an issue; it’s important to provide data to evidence the need for action and intervention. In the UK, some of our data that we report nationally for example, is tied into an access and participation plan so it reports on UK students, meaning we only receive data on ‘Black UK students’, but there’s an invisibility there in terms of what’s happening internationally.” Sharon C Brooks “At Insead, one of the biggest challenges is implementing consistent initiatives across very different cultures, contexts and legal frameworks. I’m a lawyer by training, so this is something I’m very sensitive to. The challenge is to come up with a unified framework for inclusivity that the community and stakeholders are invested in, but which is also relevant in different settings. “The way to achieve this is by engaging those it is going to impact. When I first started in my role, I had over 500 meetings with stakeholders in my first six months to find out what the priorities were. There were a number of commonalities in terms of people wanting a space where they could be heard, where they saw themselves reflected in the policies and the discussions that were happening. The core tenet was providing a space for people to share their identity and their perspectives. “We have put together a lot of content that helps people understand how to be allies and we’ve also tried to create material that people can access whenever they can. We’ve worked with students and alumni to produce podcasts that we make publicly available on our website for instance.” Sven Stromann “When we started implementing diversity management, we first focused on diversity around LGBTQ+. We realised
26 | Ambition | MAY 2023
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