Corporation to appoint two senior figures to each of its 10 leadership groups

June Sarpong

June Sarpong: recent appointed as BBC director of creative diversity

The BBC is attempting to boost the number of BAME people in its upper echelons by appointing two senior advisers to each of its 10 leadership groups.

The 20 advisers will be drawn from within the BBC and take on the responsibilities additional to their current roles for 12 months.

The advisers do not all have to be BAME but at least one in each group is expected to have a “deep understanding of BAME issues”, according to the BBC.

Applications will open in January and the appointments will be made in early 2020. Extra HR resource will be set aside to help support and develop BAME staff in applying for senior roles. The scheme will then be reviewed after 12 months.

The BBC has already committed to having two BAME people in each of these senior leadership groups by the close of 2020, with half already achieving the goal.

Recent analysis from Broadcast found that the corporation is likely to miss its 2020 overall diversity targets of 15% BAME ‘leaders’ and 50% female ‘leaders’.

This would require a net gain of some 120 BAME and 200-plus female senior staff to achieve.

Director general Tony Hall, who set the targets in 2017, said today: “Diversity of thought is so important to us, so we’ve decided to take immediate action to promote a generation of talented leaders who’ll bring the diversity of thinking we need.”

Creative Diversity Festival

The BBC is also to lead on a newly revealed Creative Diversity Festival taking place in May.

The celebration of BAME talent is being curated by recently-appointed director of creative diversity June Sarpong.

Describing today’s move as “part of a much wider long-term effort to ensure that all talent can contribute to the best of their ability”, Sarpong said the festival would “leverage the convening power of the BBC to bring together the industry’s best BAME creatives”.

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