My D&I Journey with:
Marc McKenna-Coles,
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Lead, UK & EMEA
Spotify
My D&I Journey with:1. What was your journey into diversity and inclusion?
It’s been an interesting journey! I did a theatre degree, then worked for Disney for 10 years in stores, in the UK and on their cruise line, in the US. After that I worked in banking with NatWest (and later RBS), where I became a branch manager. I then moved into business banking and discovered the employee networks RBS had to offer. I’d been involved in the women’s network, which helped me understand more about how we develop women in organisations, and a paid role came up to coordinate this globally. This meant I could continue my passion for diversity professionally on top of what I was doing personally.
A restructure meant the end of this role, but after a review of the D&I function RBS created a new global team, and my line manager took a gamble and took me on initially as a secondment. A lot of the team were from a HR background, but I came from the business side, so could apply the lens of ‘would this land well with the business?’, ‘are there things we need to reflect on?’ I’m a gay man so was pleased to be asked to lead on the LGBT+ side, but there were other strands I picked up where I didn’t have as much experience or knowledge, such as gender identity, ethnicity and disability, so I’ve built on them.
I learnt huge amounts when I moved to Lloyd’s. My boss was Pauline Miller who is head of culture both for the Corporation and the insurance market. She has shown me how to take my passion and use that energy in different ways. My next challenge is my new role at Spotify, where I’ll lead diversity, inclusion and belonging for UK and EMEA. It’s a different industry with different challenges and conversations.
2. How would you describe a typical day in your role?
There’s never a typical day in D&I – every day I learn something. I could be doing research on a topic, having meetings with my team, with senior execs, or spending time attending or presenting a webinar. One of the biggest things I worked on at Lloyd’s was the ‘Dive In’ festival, a festival of diversity and inclusion for the insurance industry. In 2020, our plans changed dramatically but we ended up with 30,000 virtual attendees, with 144 events taking place globally across 35 countries. This is great as it means lots more people are talking about D&I – 70% of attendees had not been part of the festival before.
3. What is the best part of your job?
When you start seeing change, but also if something doesn’t go your way and you need to return to the drawing board. It’s frustrating but means you can re-evaluate and that’s good. I also love getting emails to say thank you; these make all the difference. Someone might say ‘I saw this, and it helped my team’ – hearing things like this means you’re moving the dial. Or when someone asks what they can do to help – that’s when you get the troops on board.
4. What advice would you give to someone looking to move into D&I?
You need to start at the grass roots – you can’t, necessarily just jump into a senior level role. You’ve got to do the doing, not just the thinking. You don’t have to have worked in HR if you have a drive and a passion for D&I. I believe D&I should report directly to the CEO, as this can drive change from the top.
5. What are the main challenges faced by D&I professionals at the moment?
Box-ticking is still a challenge in too many organisations. This can mean that D&I feels compelled to follow suit and move forward with one agenda such as ethnicity or gender. But are we forgetting other strands such as disability? We need to build intersectionality into the agenda. I also think some organisations make grand announcements but don’t follow through. Last year many businesses started talking about being anti-racist. How can you say that if you don’t know whether all of your staff are on that journey? If organisations start claiming things, employees and customers will test this, and they will be vocal if they don’t meet up to these claims.
6. Name three skills that support you to succeed in D&I
Resilience, passion and empathy. But I also think there’s a fourth one – perseverance. It’s crucial not to feel downhearted when things don’t go right. It’s always an opportunity to learn.
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