BAME

Chamber tackles inequalities in business opportunities

Shade Abdul

The month of October was Black History Month, a chance to celebrate the excellent achievements of black people across Britain. It was also an opportunity to reflect on current inequalities that continue to cast a shadow on society as we know it.

Nowhere can these inequalities be seen more starkly than in the business community. The latest update from the Parker review on board diversity, published earlier this year, showed that more than a third of FTSE 100 companies and two thirds of FTSE 250 companies did not have any ethnic minority representation on their boards.

There are those who talk about tackling these inequalities and those who do something about it. Shade Abdul falls into the latter category. A professional architect and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Shade sits on Southwark Chamber of Commerce’s executive committee and drives forward its engagement with local small businesses led by people of ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Petrona Wickham

“We’re working with the Chamber to open up more gateways for BAME-owned SMEs, and to ensure that SMEs have better access to a pool of skilled BAME workers. Many developers have become more inclusive in their approach but the path is still blocked for many BAME individuals.”

She is also a director of Deft.Space, an interdisciplinary architecture and design studio that works across architecture, interiors, objects and strategies to create thoughtfully designed, environmentally friendly spaces for people. Shade has been instrumental in the fight to restore equality in business. She has been working with the South London Procurement Network (SLPN) to encourage companies to provide more opportunities for BAME businesses to win more work and BAME individuals to climb the career ladder. She says: “In partnership with SLPN I want to open up genuine opportunities for BAME owner-led businesses to tender for and win work. These businesses face structural inequalities which mean that even by the time they get to tender stage, they are disadvantaged. “We’ve been talking about the need to address these inequalities for years but it seems that in many cases the message isn’t getting through. Unconscious biases, racism and prejudice still pervade the workplace and wider society. We’ve got to do something rather than just talk about it. Why not start this activity here in the borough of Southwark?” On a practical level, Shade and SLPN are drawing up a list of BAME businesses in the borough and a list of tender opportunities that they could bid for. Shade and SLPN are in discussions with key developers, including British Land, to ensure that procurement opportunities on regeneration projects are extended to the BAME community. Petrona Wickham, director of SLPN – which works with micro businesses and SMEs to improve their capacity and competitiveness so they can win business locally – says: “We’re working with the Chamber to open up more gateways for BAME-owned SMEs, and to ensure that SMEs have better access to a pool of skilled BAME workers. Many developers have become more inclusive in their approach but the path is still blocked for many BAME individuals. “In some cases, the old boys’ network still exists and some developers will always go back to their preferred suppliers, even if better value can be found elsewhere. Let’s keep working to change ingrained attitudes because that’s the only way we can tackle longstanding inequalities that are unfair and outdated.”

SLPN is funded by Braeburn Estates.

“We’ve been talking about the need to address these inequalities for years but it seems that in many cases the message isn’t getting through. Unconscious biases, racism and prejudice still pervade the workplace and wider society. We’ve got to do something rather than just talk about it. Why not start this activity here in the borough of Southwark?”