Our Mission

Our Mission

The Black Talent Charter strives for equality of opportunity for black talent.

 

Our goal is to ensure the % of black professionals matches UK working population within 10 years, with representation at every level, whilst supporting people to be their authentic self.

 

We offer practical tools to support businesses and give confidence to top leadership. We constructively challenge and change mindsets in the corporate world, whilst supporting and nurturing black talent to access high earning career opportunities.

The Challenge

Black talent is disproportionately overlooked and underserved, particularly in financial and professional services, the sectors of the economy which typically have the highest remuneration.

 

The serious under-representation of black talent in finance and the professions is not due to a gap in educational attainment – black talent has a higher representation at universities than in the UK working population (8% in all universities and 4% at the top 20). The under-representation is exacerbated by the ‘stay gap’ – with black professionals less likely to stay and progress in their firms than their peers.

The Plan

We have developed three pillars to focus us and help us achieve our vision of:

 

  • creating a broader and deeper market for the recruitment and promotion of black talent across sectors
  • to develop and share best practice in recruitment and culture
  • to make the business community reflect the UK population in the representation of black talent within 10 years (instead of the 30 years that it would otherwise take, according to work commissioned for the Charter from a leading management consultancy).

 

Our three pillars are:

 

  1. Creative and collaborative thought leadership: Development of a leading knowledge hub of research and practical initiatives for the promotion of black talent and establishment of best practice
  2. Thriving black talent: Development and fostering of networks and programmes for signatories to maximise the potential of their black talent
  3. Engaged accountability: Supporting signatories to develop meaningful action plans and targets for the recruitment and promotion of black talent with annual audits, analysis and reporting across the signatory cohort

 

Systemic change in business is impossible unless all three pillars are developed together.