This is a recording of a live webinar that took place on 3 December 2020.
Description
Networks promoting black/ethnic minority inclusion have been established in other industries where they have successfully advocated for diversity and provided great opportunities to their members to either advance in their respective careers, or enabled them to get their foot in the door. With Diversity and Inclusion being a hot topic of conversation, this network aims to actively contribute to these conversations.
We appreciate and support companies’ efforts in making their boards more ethnically diverse. We also believe that governance professionals being ethnically diverse plays an instrumental part in helping to achieve this. Governance professionals are commonly deemed as advisors to the Board, and we need to foster a culture that recognises and celebrates ethnic diversity amongst the corporate governance industry in order to be better advisors in this area.
We recognise that the process of boards and the corporate governance profession becoming ethnically diverse will not happen overnight, therefore, our starting point as a network in helping to achieve this goal is to create a sense of community, where black governance professionals share ideas and thoughts amongst each other, as well as with allies on how BGPN's mission can be supported.
Speakers
This webinar was facilitated by Founder, Samira Chambas and Co-Founders, Dami Onotayo and Zhanique Benjamin.
The panel included:
- Dr Karl George MBE, Director, The Governance Forum Limited
- Juwon Osundina, Deputy Company Secretary, Railpen Investments.
Samira qualified as a company secretary in 2018. While still a student, Samira was a board member of the ICSA UK Student Forum. Samira is currently an Assistant Company Secretary at Diageo plc. Her previous roles were at Equiniti David Venus (now Prism Cosec), Intertrust Group and Aviva plc. She was born in and also spent some of her upbringing in Ghana and is very in touch with her Ghanaian heritage. Samira now lives in London.
In 2018, Samira was nominated as “One to Watch“ in the ICSA Awards and in 2020, was recognised in the Social Impact Category of the annual Governance Hot 100. She has a YouTube channel ‘MiraaSpeaks’ where she talks all things governance, motivation and lifestyle.
Bio coming soon
Juwon Osundina is the Deputy Company Secretary of RPMI Railpen. Juwon/s previous experience included coporate governance, research, subsidiary management and regulatory compliance for UK listed entities across various organisations including Rio Tinto and Royal Dutch Shell.
