Wireline Magazine Issue 51 - Summer 2021

the industry cannot afford to ignore. We need to ensure that disability is not a barrier to contribution to industry. We also need to rid our companies of the biases that often hinder ethnic minorities in general and Black African and Caribbean people in particular from being represented at leadership level in our companies. EK: The importance of inclusive and diverse leadership and culture to our survey respondents. Culture is driven from the top and without the buy-in and back up of senior leaders D&I initiatives are likely to flounder. A visibly diverse leadership team is ideal but not a reality yet for most across our industry. However, leaders can counter that through their own efforts to publicly champion, understand, learn about, speak about, and collaborate on D&I issues. FA: As well as creating a “baseline” from which we can measure progress over the coming years, the report flags four or five useful areas where companies can focus their energies to drive real effect – inclusive and committed leadership, empowering and catalysing the 31-40 year age group, addressing flexible recruitment and flexible career pathways as a priority and the importance of the SME perspective and challenge for our industry. These are highlighted because they are areas of challenge which companies and industry needs to wrestle with and find solutions. Were there any findings that surprised you? OF: I was surprised that the experiences of people of Asian descent contrasted so starkly from the experiences of black people. This highlights the importance of not treating ethnic minorities as a monolith.

Left-right: principal process engineer and co-founder of

“A visibly diverse leadership team is ideal but not a reality yet for most across our industry. However, leaders can counter that through their own efforts to publicly champion, understand...and collaborate on D&I issues. ”

AFBE-UK, Ollie Folayan; Blackwood Partners head of employment Erica Kinmond; Baker Hughes, VP and general counsel, oilfield equipment Findlay Anderson.

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