Over the past decade women have drastically changed the business landscape and although there is still a way to go, we are seeing more ethnically diverse women at the top table.
Director at Deloitte, Ololade Adesanya was the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) West of England in 2022 and 2023 and recently stepped down from the role. However, she remains active within the ICAEW in driving the diversity and inclusion agenda as a voice for the profession.
Earlier this year BusinessLive spoke with Mrs Adesanya about women in business. As a mother of two young children, she understands how “daunting” progression can be for women when leaving and re-entering the workplace. She also knows first-hand how challenging it can be juggling work with parenting.
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“The key thing for me was not dropping out,” she told BusinessLive . “Often women drop out of their careers when they have children and can find it difficult to come back.”
However, as a mentor Mrs Adesanya encourages women to take their full maternity leave and reframe their career as a “long term gain rather than a short-term deal”.
Over the past decade the former ICAEW president has mentored many people from a range of backgrounds, including those from Black and ethnic minority heritage, young people and women.
Mrs Adesanya told us: “People have come up to me to say, ‘we are so proud to see a Black woman at the top, we’ve not seen this before, it’s fantastic’.”
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As a female leader in business, Mrs Adesanya hopes to inspire not only women but more people from ethnic minority backgrounds to pursue their chosen careers and not give up.
It was at an ICAEW International Women’s Day event that Mrs Adesanya was encouraged to connect more with the organisation and met with the ICAEW director.
“I told her how passionate I was about getting more diversity into the profession and talked about the different initiatives I had already spearheaded,” she explained.
She then became one of the first people on the committee to drive the diversity and inclusion initiative on the committee and after two years was nominated for the role of vice president in the West of England.
The ICAEW is a professional organisation that promotes, develops, and supports chartered accountants and students around the world. As of July 2022, it has over 198,000 members and students in 147 countries.
Mrs Adesanya told BusinessLive how she was nervous at first and feared that no one would vote for her even though she had been nominated.
But those around her in the organisation, encouraged her and she became president. Mrs Adesanya was the first president from an ethnic minority background in 120 years of the district society’s existence.
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During her presidential year she focussed on the theme of engagement across existing and younger members as well as the wider business community.
'People have come up to me to say, we are so proud to see a Black woman at the top'
Mrs Adesanya looks back with pride at what was achieved during her time as president. During the year Mrs Adesanya told BusinessLive about a number of initiatives that she hosted, including a managing partners’ dinner in collaboration with Bristol Law Society that discussed how to collaborate on the net zero agenda in the region. Also, a sponsored local fintech event as well as hosting an International Women’s Day event for all genders that brought together senior business leaders and professionals from the region.
Her team also collaborated with the universities of Bristol, Bath and Exeter on a business game challenge.
“I am really proud of what we have done together as a committee. I am also pleased that in our own way we have driven diversity.”
An example of how much Mrs Adesanya and her team achieved in just a year was at the annual ICAEW West of England dinner in May 2023.
She exclaimed: “This was the first time we have had so much diversity represented at one of our dinners or events. It was a fantastic achievement and hopefully it has raised a lot more awareness about the ICAEW and what we do and the fact that the profession is openly respectful of your background.”
She added: “We are making progress, but I am aware that with progress, challenges can occur that we all need to navigate, and overcome any barriers.”
Explaining further, Mrs Adesanya told BusinessLive that the more you progress in your career, there tends to be less diversity at the top.
“So, it’s a different challenge in terms of fitting into an environment where not many people look like you, think like you, act like you.”
She added: “However, it gets easier as you’ve built the credibility in your career, so people respect you because you’ve got the title and you’ve worked incredibly hard, and so they recognise you for being great at what you do.”
Reiterating how important support is, Mrs Adesanya recognised how fortunate she has been to have people help her on her journey and is adamant that “if you work hard, there’s no way your hard work won’t eventually speak for you, although the journey isn’t always easy”.
'In our own way we have driven diversity'
She explained: “When it comes to diversity and inclusion, I encourage people to do their best every day, be a role model or ally, and together we will continue to make progress. Whilst diversity has improved, it’s not moving as quickly as it should, and a lot of young people are losing patience. I hope that the future is more inclusive than it is now.”
Reflecting on her career, Mrs Adesanya said her employer, professional services firm, Deloitte “makes a lot of effort towards diversity and inclusion and over the past years Deloitte has put in place a series of targeted interventions that span recruitment, development and retention to increase the number of Black and other ethnic minority partners and people of all grades to ensure we are truly representative of society - but we know that we have a lot to do and much further to go.”
In June 2023, new partner promotes at Deloitte 海角视频 included 18 new partners from ethnic minority backgrounds, equating to 18% of the promotions. Of those, three new partners were Black, totalling 15 Black partners in the 海角视频. Overall, there are now 131 partners identifying as ethnic minority representing 10% of the firm’s total partners.
“Thanks to the culture at Deloitte, I would say it’s one of the most inclusive places I’ve worked in. I am able to be my true authentic self as a Black woman working in a traditionally very male dominated profession, I feel very respected, visible and heard, and so I feel empowered to actively promote inclusion within my team.”