Increasing diversity within organisations, particularly among governing boards and senior leadership, is integral to our mission to strengthen our partners and enhance global impact. Organisations with diverse talent foster cultures of innovation, creativity, empathy, and effective decision-making. Their impact is greater when they can internally reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. Likewise, a lack of diversity on leadership teams has been shown to perpetuate a cycle of homogeny in both thought and recruitment, which leads to stagnant and insular perspectives in danger of becoming out of touch with the needs of the communities they serve.

How we build diversity into our searches

We have seen diversity’s value first-hand, and that’s why we’re dedicated to supporting efforts within your own organisation to establish a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion. We strive to represent diverse identities on all longlists we present. Last year, 58% of our global placements were women, and 60% represented people of colour or those from the Global South.

To ensure inclusive search practices, we:

• Craft job advertisements so that they are applicable to all people. We avoid stereotypically masculine terms, using language that welcomes all applicants by focusing solely on the objective job requirements and key competencies.
• Check for bias embedded in our processes for screening résumés, interviewing applicants, and extending offers. We widen the pool and create a culture of diversity in all stages of the recruitment process.
• Rely on more than direct applicants and referrals from our network. Our search strategies include outreach to passive candidates, because our own research has shown that some, particularly women, are more likely to rule themselves out for a role where they don’t fully meet the requirements in the job advertisement. This is key in significantly increasing the diversity of candidates represented.
• Train our Research team to use search strategies that include identifying candidates through academic, professional or civic associations such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, women in STEM associations, and others.
• Evaluate every candidate consistently and reduce the impact of unconscious bias on decision-making. Candidates are screened and interviewed using the same structured questions to standardise the interview process.
• Are mindful that not all candidates interview as well as others. We provide all candidates at the later interview stage with detailed, guided training to help them prepare for key questions with structured answers and specific examples. This helps level the playing field and quell inhibitions for candidates who may be nervous in interviews.

For more information on how we achieve Gender Parity in our placements, get in touch.