Howard Bentham: Hello there and thanks for tuning in once again.
I'm Howard Bentham, and this is OxTalks, the podcast powered by OxLEP, the local
enterprise partnership for Oxfordshire.
During these podcasts, I speak with some quite brilliant and innovative leaders
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In this edition, we'll be hearing how to embrace diversity in the workplace,
exploring the impact and integration of equality, diversity, and inclusion
into different sectors of business and enterprise, as well as sharing practical
advice and guidance for leaders.
The three terms, equality, diversity, and inclusion are often placed
together, but clearly cover three very different areas and nuance.
Equality is something all fair minded people, one would hope, would strive
for in life as well as in work.
But how do you make a competitive working environment equal and fair for all?
Diversity picks up on this idea of fair representation in terms of, and this
is not an exhaustive list, sex, gender, race, disability, religion, sexual
orientation and socio economic background.
What are the benefits of being such a broad church, but how do you stop
that becoming just a tick box list?
The inclusion part, though, is key to making everyone feel
listened to and part of the whole.
The organisation acting as a warm and embracing environment for divergence of
thought, and variations of humankind.
It's a great aim to strive for, however, leaders have to take
decisions and not everyone will feel that decision works for them.
Many organisations have a strong commitment to ED& I and potential
employees look to align their values with those of the organisation
in the recruitment process.
However, is it truly possible to level the playing field at work with
just too many conflicting angles to allow equality, diversity and
inclusion to function effectively?
We hear many business commentators saying equality, diversity and inclusion
is simply the right thing to do.
What are the metrics for measuring if ED&I are actually good for business, and
can that claim be backed up by evidence?
There is much to discuss, from female representation in the workplace and
gender pay gaps, to the ethnicity mix in the boardroom and why some groups
in society are simply overlooked.
Charged with putting all this into context and sharing with us best
practice in everything equality, diversity and inclusion is the first
ever ED&I lead at Aston Martin.
She has a fascinating background that includes hip hop dancing, time working
in Ghana and New York, as well as earning a Master's in International
Law at Oxford Brookes University.
I'm delighted to welcome to OxTalks, Laura Ayoade.
Laura, great to speak with you.
Before we delve into ED&I head on, let's learn a little bit
about you first of all, if we can.
As I understand it, you were raised here in the county and still live locally.
Give us a quick potted life history about the hip hop, the teaching, the
time overseas, and how that's ended up with you as ED& I lead at James
Bond's car manufacturer of choice.
Laura Ayoade: Sure, so yeah, I was born in Oxford and still live in Bicester locally.
So not too far from like home.
Yeah, I went to university to study dance and realised very quickly
when I was in a contemporary school that that wasn't for me.
I didn't want to be a carbon copy on stage and stage dance wasn't where I was kind
of headed, it wasn't my passion, and I really wanted to study a dance that was
from a culture, from a place of meaning.
My interest through school was the civil rights, so I loved history.
I loved doing kind of the black civil rights, and some of the
kind of histories through that from slavery and the trajectory.
So I chose to transfer to London and do a hip hop dance degree especially so
that I can kind of get into the culture behind it and obviously that comes from
like a space of racial justice, first and foremost, so that's been where I've
wanted to head in terms of my trajectory in terms of ED&I, particularly at the
time, ED&I wasn't really a space, I suppose, so I couldn't kind of pinpoint
what job I would do eventually.
But I stayed with that trajectory and worked out in the United States,
in New York with a hip hop dance conservatory, danced in Broadway
Dance Center for some time and danced over there kind of four years in the
summers, and also in other spaces.
So I went to Ghana for a month and did like African contemporary dance
and like still stuck with that kind of racial justice trend of like
all different cultural dancers.
I then went on to do a range of master's degrees, because why not?
I did a double master's in international performance research and focused again
on kind of hip hop as a core identity and understanding the performance, so
the performativity of just all kinds of things from protest through to just
general happenings and wrote my thesis on how the criminalisation of hip hop
impacted black and ethnic minority people, including Latino people in New York City
and looked at all kinds of things from the architecture of the city and all
sorts of stuff that went with that and then I did a master's in international
human rights law because no one..
Howard Bentham: A bit of a leap there.
Laura Ayoade: It is and it, it made sense because no one really
gave me enough kudos for the arts.
Like, the arts is still like a space that really suffers in terms of, okay,
cool, you've done a dance degree, what are you going to do with that?
So, I looked at policy and I looked at law and I applied for both and I thought
about what was best in terms of what I wanted to get out of it and I found that
policy is great, but it can be changed and altered so many times by lots of different
people, law is like your foundation, your legislation, it's harder to change.
It's immense kind of in our society, like the foundations and the basics.
So I did international human rights law because it, kind of led on
from that racial justice piece.
We've covered lots of things from like globalisation and development,
international humanitarian law, which I'm deeply interested in.
So my kind of day to day interests would be things like Gaza and stuff like that
right now, Ukraine and other spaces that are in war and genocide essentially.
So I did the human rights law so that I could kind of look into the humanitarian
law pieces as well, which covers the four major crimes, crimes against humanity,
war crimes, aggression and genocide and it was what interested me and I, I did my
thesis again, related to hip hop and when I looked into intellectual property law
and how people had the rights to protect their forms of cultural expression.
Unfortunately, globally, the only type of choreography protected is for stage
and that puts its own issues because the people that are often afforded
space on stage are not people of colour.
So that kind of showed the racial injustices in those spaces.
So I'll use, actually, Australia is a key example because Aboriginals are the
only space afforded that protection by law for their forms of cultural identity
and expression rather than on stage.
So I utilised that as my foundation for arguing the point, which was, yeah, it
was interesting and I had two professors arguing over my thesis, one wanting to
fail me and one wanting to give me a first, and I got the first, thankfully,
which led me into kind of my ED& I career and I kind of loopholed in through it.
I taught through my master's degrees to help pay for them
because they're not cheap.
So I was teaching in secondary education mostly through performing arts and
that kind of dance space in Oxford, so locally again and then went to work
for a local company, Unipart, as their corporate and social responsibility lead.
So working under the head of CSR, which happened during a monumental time in our
kind of history, it was COVID pandemic.
I started there in March of 2020, five days before lockdown, and also followed
on by Floyd, which happened in the May of 2020 and I don't think that murder
would have been as significant as it was if we weren't had been locked down and
watching it live on TV, which was horrific for so many people and very traumatic.
So that kind of led me into wanting to do more in that space and went on
to work for Business in the Community, who are the biggest and largest, oldest
responsible business network in the UK.
Prince Charles at the time, now King Charles, was the founding
member, and, we are essentially inclusion consultants, I suppose.
we are given a range of organisations to consult on best practice and including
running the competitions like Time Stop 50 for Women, for example and
helping grade those and set that up.
So I was responsible for writing some of those questions a few years ago,
and benchmarking that, which then saw me work alongside some of the greatest
corporates and thought, maybe let's go in house for a bit and see what
that's like from a different angle.
So went back in house, similar to Unipart, I suppose, automotive industry
originally, and found Aston Martin, came up and they actually signed with
Business and the Community at the same time as me taking a role with them, which
was coincidental, I have no part in it.
But yeah, I went on to Aston Martin purely because I felt that I could
make a massive difference there.
The racial injustice side is still really important to me.
It's something that, I kind of look at in my free time, I still work for Stand
Up to Racism UK, still interested in some of the kind of activist groups,
Roads Must Fall in Oxford is a big one.
But obviously there's other elements to diversity and inclusion that are
really key in business and Aston Martin has a range of focuses at the moment,
so I felt that those focuses were something I could align with and work on.
Howard Bentham: There's obviously a passion for fairness, just listening
to your sort of backstory there.
Was there a moment, a key incident that's driven that?
Laura Ayoade: I think I can't pinpoint one, but I can pinpoint many kind of
examples and I think because my passion for hip hop dance was what kind of I
practice in my everyday life, things like when I went out on the weekends, I'd go to
clubs that played hip hop music and would be surrounded by a lot of diverse people.
So most of my close friends at the time were from an ethnically minoritised
background, mostly Black, Black British, Black international as well and I
watched incidences happen on a daily basis that were just not fair at all.
Just different expectations on them than there were for me.
How I definitely had like privileged opportunities in the same
situations as them and I just, it didn't kind of sit well with me.
So, yeah, it was a series of events that made me feel like there was
more to be done in that space.
Howard Bentham: I guess in the spirit of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
What challenges or obstacles did you face early in your career and how did
you overcome them to focus on ED&I?
Laura Ayoade: I I think one of the things was like, I didn't really know what ED& I
was, like there wasn't a specific space.
It's obviously exploded and on the scene since Floyd and since other kind of
things that have happened globally and UK as well and so I think navigating
like a career in a specific space that's not maths English, those subjects that
you get taught at school and I feel careers currently isn't, well it wasn't
when I was at school, it wasn't very great in foreseeing other opportunities
other than like become a teacher, become a doctor, those kind of things.
I think it's a lot better now and is improving.
So I think that was a massive hurdle, hence why I probably did
four degrees rather than just one to get to what I got to.
I think also given that, obviously ED& I ranges and we'll probably go into a bit
more of the protected characteristics and the things that it covers.
My background is wholeheartedly in racial justice and obviously I am
not a racial minority for the UK.
I am white British, Oxford born and bred, so my parents are my grandparents
and so most of my great grandparents.
So we're like blue through our veins.
So it's hard sometimes navigating with people that don't feel like I am
legitimate and backing that space, like I should be a person of colour and actually,
I often talk about the fact that the systems of racism, especially in the
UK, because our racism is more subtle than some of the spaces in the world,
and it's very systematic and systemic.
Those systems were not set up by people of colour, they were set up
by colonial spaces and people that look like me and in dismantling
them, you're going to need everybody.
It's like working for women's equality without involving
men, it just doesn't work.
Like, you have to have both sides.
So I feel quite passionate about standing my ground in that space and
supporting that space towards fairness.
Howard Bentham: I gave one view on the definition of equality, diversity
and inclusion in the introduction.
Let's hear your thoughts on it.
Do you view them as distinct entities?
Laura Ayoade: Definitely, like, I think they've been grouped together so often
that they've become a buzzword and a fad, and that is, literally destroying the
industry because people are thinking, okay, it had its time and now it's not as
important, when actually in an economic crisis, in a global, like post global
pandemic, and in multiple wars that are happening, like it's more important
than ever because those are the things that make people feel like, they belong
somewhere, and that is the inclusion piece, it is the ultimate aim, right,
to feel like you belong, to feel that it is your space, and it's hard to achieve.
The diversity piece is what kind of comes first for me, like, it's getting
a wide range of people, a variety of people in the space, to then
make sure that they are included in that space, and through fairness and
equality and also equity, which I'll talk about in relation to equality.
So diversity is just a range of people and obviously that will look different
from different parts of the UK.
If you're based in London, like the percentages are higher and more varied.
So you should reflect the community that you serve.
Whereas in Oxford, where we are, like it's a little bit more mixed, than say, I don't
know, somewhere out in the Cotswolds but it's not as mixed as London so you need
to be kind of looking at the percentages of people that are there to make sure that
you are kind of reflecting that and that would give you the diversity of the area.
Howard Bentham: Does that make it different and difficult then when
you're trying to do a UK policy, for example, you can almost look
at London as a, another country
Laura Ayoade: Yeah, you could, yeah and Birmingham and like, the other major kind
of cities or hubs, so I mean you would aim for best practice and thinking okay
well we're, for example, on the gender space or like sex space, you'd look at,
okay, we're 48 percent men, 48 percent women, we leave a 4 percent in the middle
for kind of trans and non binary spaces at the moment and so you'd want to try
to reflect that as close as possible and then if you were a business that
was based in like Gaydon, like we are in Warwickshire, you would look the metrics
for that area to hone in even more detail.
So you'd go into detail there to, like, show that your metrics match or vice
versa, if you were looking at like, race, for example, and that was much
more, varied in London, you would use, like, the UK overall metrics first, and
then you would go, actually, ours are going to be slightly lower than that,
and this is the reason, because we sit in this space, and that's not our space.
So yeah, I think it's fairly easy to kind of show those metrics are available
through ONS surveys and things like that.
Yeah, I don't think it's too difficult to do.
Howard Bentham: So what are the benefits then of companies aiming
for genuine equality, diversity and inclusion at their organisations?
Laura Ayoade: There's so many, and I think it's key to kind of mention
the equality versus the equity piece.
My E in my title stands for equity rather than equality, and we chose to
go with that because the difference I would say is like the equality
is getting everybody in the room.
Everyone's around the table has a seat.
Equity is giving every person a voice in that room.
So making sure that they have what they need to start off in the right position
in their place and make sure they're heard at the same level as everybody else and
there's a massive difference in that.
There's so many benefits to it because if you think about having a room of 10 people
that all grew up in Oxford and all grew up with the same kind of schooling or went
to the same space, had the same friends and the same ideas and same education.
When they're problem solving, they're probably going to come
out with opportunities that are quite like each other.
So you might get one or two problem solving ideas out of them.
But if you put in a range of people and split that 10 people in lots of
different ways through race and gender and all of the different kind of
characteristics you can come with, then it's proven that you will probably come
out with a range of ideas much more than you would than targeting a group
of people that are quite the same.
So of course that can bring more productivity to a business, it gives
greater innovation and thought process and diversity of thought in general to be able
to create better solutions to problems, especially if you're trying to be more
innovative and grow and change things.
You're going to need more thought in this space than just the usual.
Howard Bentham: Can it be truly achievable though, or will it
always be a work in progress?
Laura Ayoade: ED& I changes daily, right?
So the bar is...
Howard Bentham: Staff turnover will affect that as well, won't it?
Laura Ayoade: Of course, yeah, yeah, retention is a really big thing
and it's something to think about.
I think it's achievable in some spaces.
It depends on the metrics that you place on the business and how achievable
those are and we can talk a little bit about one of the key metrics
that's been put out from Aston and how achievable that is, because that is a
problematic space at the moment and for various reasons, which I can pinpoint
to and ED& I changes daily, like the makeup of our country changes daily.
When you have migration and things from war and stuff like that, refugees and
asylum seekers, everything changes, so you're going to have to kind of
continuously move that benchmark, but I do think that we can get to a space where
we reach like a pinnacle where everybody's at least feeling like they belong,
because that is the key issue really.
It's like you can throw a bunch of people together that are from all different
backgrounds, but unless you put in place all of the things that make them
feel like they belong and make them included, then you're not really reaching
the ideal inclusion perspective on it.
It's the same as if you build a new housing estate, right?
You don't put in the amenities, you don't put in the schooling,
like, where are they going to go?
What are they going to do?
Like, there's so many things that they need to flourish, otherwise
they're not going to flourish well.
Howard Bentham: Just something you said about having good ED& I in the
business can improve productivity.
You say can, what are the metrics for measuring that on the bottom line?
Laura Ayoade: Gosh, it's so hard because there's so many things with ED&I that
are like, you can't measure by data, but there are things that you can.
So first and foremost, the diversity, you can pull the ONS statistics, right
and work on that and understand what is available in your pool of people to hire.
So you'd work on those diversity metrics.
I mean, the productivity would be measured later in terms of was it successful?
Like, the project successful and what that success measure looks like
is different for each organisation.
So for us, it's building a car and making something kind of fantastic
and new and how successful that is.
You can see when it goes to market and whether they sell out.
We have really unique spaces where we, I think for the 110
year anniversary, we did 110 cars.
They were sold before they were made, like those are like successes.
The inclusion piece is a little bit more nuanced.
So it's listening to your people mostly, thinking about that everyday
experience and actually wanting to hear how their experience is,
the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Like understanding what's working and what's not working, what to keep and what
to change, how to grow as an organisation and there's lots of different things
that come out of so many different spaces in terms of that experience and
for everybody it will be different, like you could have ten people in the room
that are the same and that experience will still be different, but when you
enable much more diversity that is going to get more complicated and complex
in terms of making sure that you have everything in place to make them feel
included, but it's a constant continuous listening cycle of like hearing, accepting
feedback, giving feedback and just making sure that they have a place for that.
Howard Bentham: On the sort of point of being a competitive working
environment and equality or equity as you've termed it, ultimately, someone
is going to get that promotion and a boss will have to make that decision
that not everyone will be happy with.
So how does, that sit in the great world of equity?
Laura Ayoade: When you go for a position, the person that's hired
should always be based on merit.
Positive discrimination is illegal in this country and It's not about
discriminating and ticking a box and being like, Okay, great, we've got a
diversity hire, we've got somebody diverse on the board or whatever level it is.
They should still be based on merit.
so it's still following a process.
Recruitment processes should be rigorous, they should follow a range
of things from like understanding who that person is and whether they are
the right add, not cultural fit, but a cultural add to the business because
fit makes you all the same, right?
Like you're just fitting into the same to complete the kind of norm that's
there, and it should be adding to that.
But yeah, they should be thinking about competency base and skills base, not just
who the person is, whether they support the same football team as you or whatever
it is that becomes biased in that space.
That's why a lot of organisations will run things like unconscious
bias training for recruitment and recruiting managers, because then they
can constantly be aware of what their biases are and then challenge them in
a space of recruitment, because they should not be making the decisions for
the hires, it should be based on merit.
Howard Bentham: Let's explore that point a bit more using your role at Aston Martin.
Now, how have you found the automotive sector, coming in from,
I say, from the world of hip hop is, it's a wonderful transition.
I guess it's a different attitude as well to working in the third
sector and education sectors where you've got experience.
Laura Ayoade: Yeah, definitely, like the corporate world is very different.
There's different rules and how you kind of show up in the space and make it work
because obviously there's a business case, whereas within education things it's
around like so many other metrics, right?
Like making sure children thrive and can reach their full potential.
It's very different, I have to say it's not very me.
Like I enjoy it.
Like I think there's benefits to it.
I think.
What I miss is the kind of justice space and charity space and
like driving real global change.
but that's something I'm sure I'll get back to one day, but at Aston, I think
it's interesting because there's so many things to work on there and there's
great spaces of impact to be made.
So it completely drove me to going there.
I was thinking, okay, what is the business like?
What's it made up of?
Okay.
It's like 82 percent white men.
That's stark in itself, considering we sit near Birmingham and Coventry, like
they're massive hubs of diversity, right?
So what are we lacking and what is happening in terms of the higher?
So we do have an external commitment of achieving 30 percent
women in leadership by 2030.
We're at 17 percent right now and it seems quite far off, actually and
that's not an Aston Martin issue, that's an automotive industry issue.
There are currently around 22 percent women in the kind of engineering
manufacturing space to pull from.
So if there isn't a pool of talent, you can't pull from somewhere
else, like it doesn't exist, right?
So it's thinking about, okay, where does that talent come from?
What gets them into those spaces and actually it's thinking about schools
and children often make up their minds around their potential careers or at
least the subjects that they want to study by the age of 11 and so it's capturing
them before that to think about, okay, could you see yourself in science?
Like, is that something that could interest you or technology or, and
actually taking it out of the classroom and thinking about, okay, cause science
is just like your everyday subjects in school become like quite samey, right?
But there's so much more to science than just the classroom.
So taking Aston Martin to them in a way that's manageable for them to kind
of get their teeth into and think, okay, could I do this as a career?
Howard Bentham: So give us some of the ideas you've come up with in the policies
you've been driving to affect that change?
Laura Ayoade: Sure, so we've partnered with an amazing
organisation called Ducktu.
They work with primary schools mostly, sometimes secondary as well.
Their thing is disability and also social mobility.
So when we talk about the old class system in the UK, that's where we're looking
at with social mobility and thinking about bread lines and things like that.
They focus on all of those things in terms of bringing the
businesses to the school classroom.
So what we did is an Aston Martin module with them.
It's filmed with all of our people, they come in and film
it with a script and think about what we want to do as a project.
So for us, it's the building of a car and they, the children have to
work in groups across a four week period to kind of create this car.
First, it's like the design piece, what do you want it to look like?
How cool is it going to be?
And within that, they think about lots of different specifics from
engineering, from like aerodynamics, how are you going to make it go faster?
What mechanism are you going to use to make it propel forward?
And then they kind of get all the bits and pieces from around the classroom,
old toilet rolls and boxes to make this car and design it and essentially
their teacher takes them through it.
It's a recorded piece, but it can go to any school in the country because it's
recorded and far reaching through Ducktu.
So we choose to get into the classroom and into the brains of like
children from age five to ten early through that opportunity so they
can see, okay, this was really cool.
What do I need to do?
What do I need to study to get to those spaces?
So that was a really good partnership for us.
We've also come up with a new STEM strategy and thinking about our outreach.
It sits in the learning and development team as well as kind
of my space, but looking at lots of opportunities to collaborate with
universities, with other secondary schools locally and further afield.
But we focus on local just to be kind of, very corporate responsibility and
social responsibility, but also we do have a three days in the office
kind of set period at the moment.
We're working through our agile working policy at the moment, but
we still will require people on site because of the nature of the business.
So it's unfair to ask someone from like Edinburgh to come and work
for us unless they want to relocate and then that's their choice.
We're like focused on our local areas first and then there's lots of other
pieces that go into like awareness days and working with our inclusion
network and other inclusion events that happen nationally and globally
that we can focus on to kind of drive some of the awareness and the change.
One of the pieces we did in 2023, I have to think of the year that it happened,
it was International Women's Day.
We opened our Newport Pagnell space to women and girls across
the country to come and experience our heritage site, it's incredible.
If you ever want to visit Aston, that's the site to go to because they have all
of the old cars, the King's car service there, all of the kind of traditional
pieces, the things that just is so lovely about Aston in terms of its history,
really and we opened up that space for tours and talks and panel events with the
F1 team came to, they bought the Alonzo car at the time, and we had our DBX safety
car, like lots of kind of opportunity to actually get inside and feel the product
and be part of our discussion in that space, which I think is also key because
people will never really understand what it's like to work in a space unless
they can see it, feel it, be part of it.
So opening our doors a little bit more is really important
in kind of gaining interest and building impact in that space.
Howard Bentham: So once you've hooked young people in or maybe been on
these outreach, they've been out into the community and inspired possibly
the next generation and you've got them on board, how do you go about
fostering an environment where all employees feel valued and listened to?
Laura Ayoade: There's a range of things really.
So I think one of the most powerful internal things is our Inclusion Network.
It was set up in May of 22, so before I started.
It was an overarching inclusion network or what people refer to
as an employee resource group.
To be the people for our people essentially.
It's run by passionate individuals in the organisation that care about
inclusivity and making sure that we celebrate everybody always and that's
grown organically from one formal inclusion network to a six piece strand.
So we still have the overarching inclusion network with their chair, who's amazing,
Matthew Harriet Randall, incredible person who just drives that forward.
But we then have these six strands that focus on I Am Gender, so
thinking about all things gender and we have various, like, success and
impactful stories from that space in particular that I've worked on.
We have I Am Well, which focuses on anything wellbeing.
I Am Able, which is anything ability and disability, including neurodivergence,
so dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD type things.
We have I Am Pride, which is our LGBTQ plus network, which
partners really closely with Racing Pride and runs all things kind
of I Am Pride month and beyond.
We have I Am Embrace, which focuses on race, ethnicity, religion, no
religion, belief and other sort of that space and we have I am
armed forces, it's our newest one.
So the automotive sector hires disproportionate rates of veterans.
So we have quite a lot of veterans because of their skill sets, they
really fit well with car manufacturing.
So we set up that one two months ago because of the need from the business and
those can continue to grow organically, possibly into protected characteristics,
possibly beyond inter social mobility, parents and carers and those kind of
things and we're building our champions base out at the moment because we're
aware that the production floor can't sit at a laptop, can't join meetings
as and when is necessary and so we're looking at how we get champions into
those spaces and also our regions, right, because we're international, making sure
that everybody is involved in a space and have a representative to go to to
hear about some of the kind of awareness days and pieces that we're doing.
So this month is Black History Month, next month will be Movember.
So some key dates in the diary that we celebrate and ensure people are included
in and then it's all the other stuff of like, we, I think we are one of the
only big automotive brands that gives every single employee healthcare at all
levels, no matter what level you sit at, you have access to private healthcare.
Those are really good for feeling included because there's no disparity
in terms of, oh, you're like not at the grade to achieve it yet, so that
everybody has that and then just kind of the general kind of fostering of
inclusive spaces, such as opportunities to hear them and their experience.
We run a series of roundtables, including with our CEO, he listens to some.
We've just got a new CEO, as you'll probably be aware, but both our new
and old CEOs have already engaged with roundtable opportunities and
yeah, just listening and hearing us and engaging on some of those pieces.
So I think that helps foster the inclusion piece.
Howard Bentham: It's quite a list of the I ams that you're talking about there.
I mean, obviously you've got a partnership with Racing Pride, you've,
touched on there at Aston Martin.
Could it be argued though, by highlighting, if you like the
differences, for example, the LGBTQ plus community in this example, that
you're potentially leaving other people behind by highlighting the difference?
Laura Ayoade: Yeah and that has been raised at Aston actually, and it's why
our champion spaces are being drawn out.
So first and foremost, all our spaces are for those people and allies.
So it's not restrictive to somebody who is LGBTQ+ to join I Am Pride,
it's for everybody that wants to ally that space and champion that space
and support everybody in that space.
Secondly, it's understanding that because we have heard from, especially from
production that don't access the space as easy and understand its full potential,
that I don't fit into any of those boxes.
The word comes up that I'm normal, I don't really fit into that.
Like, where do I go?
Like, what's for me?
And I kind of counter that, that every single person in the business
has at the least three protected characteristics at any one time.
Every single person does in the country, so everybody has a sex,
they're either male, female, born.
Everybody has a race, no matter whether that's a majority race or a
minority race and everybody has an age.
So they are three protected characteristics under the Equality Act.
So you have those three and for that reason, the network is there for
you because they are about protected characteristics and beyond and if
there is a group that you foresee being in that space that's not currently
there, we can make it, it continues to organically grow and we want to make
sure that there's space for everybody.
But equally, we'd expect that you as an employee would want everyone to
come to work to feel included and you might have a person in your team that's
LGBTQ+ and is not feeling supported and doesn't really know where to go
and by you being engaged with I Am Pride, or at least with the network
overall, you can be very sure around where to signpost them and support them.
So it's about being in it together and supporting each other because
you work with people every day.
You all have families, you all have people around you that possibly will
fit into a different box to you and make sure that we can kind of include
them and then it's thinking about the intersectionality as well of that
because you aren't just a gay woman, you are a woman as well, you will have
an age, you'll have a race, like, so...
Howard Bentham: Exactly point that that person might not fit in,
not because of their sexuality, just for another reason at work.
But yet the, if you like, the label is there that they're
from that characteristic.
So can you see where, where there is the antagonism there potentially?
Laura Ayoade: Definitely.
I think the ideal world in like our future utopia, let's hope, is that
everyone comes to work already showing up as themselves, that they can then
be like themselves and feel fully included for that and then I won't need
a job in that space and that will be perfect in terms of like making sure
that the world is a bit more inclusive.
The reality is, if you have a characteristic that fits into a space
that's not included as much at the moment, and there are significant ones in the UK,
then you already start at a disadvantage.
So we know women in the UK, particularly, and probably globally, we talk about
this glass ceiling in the workplace of reaching certain heights and not being
able to get beyond that and I mean, Aston's a perfect example of that, we
have a C suite that is all men, we were called out for it a couple of years ago.
We are one of the only five organisations in the UK still at that stage and we
are working to change that and consider that and so when you layer that with the
intersectional approaches, so if you're a woman, you have that glass ceiling.
If you're a black woman, it's considered a glass ceiling and then a cement ceiling.
So you've got a lot more to get through because of your sex is an issue to begin
with and then you've got your race on top that you're systemically disadvantaged up
because of kind of colonial era kind of setup of the UK and how it works currently
and also just bias and injustice and kind of ignorance as well as prejudice, right?
Like there's layers and layers of it.
So it's important to realise those spaces aren't achieving from an
equal playing field and this is where we talk about equity, right?
Like they come in and they feel equal, but if you're given the same opportunity
as a white woman and you're a black woman, you're probably not going to
achieve in the same way because you've already got something else layered on
top of you and we need to understand that we disproportionately have bias
towards black women versus white women, there are different things that
happen in the recruitment space and opportunity space for those people.
So if you ignore it and say we're just going to group you together
because you know you're both women and we should treat you fairly like
and equally, it's not really equal.
It's the same as giving somebody who's hard of hearing an opportunity
to listen to this podcast without an adjustment for them to be able to
hear it properly, as giving someone who couldn't hear fully, like, you're
saying, well, you both got ears, so, you know, we'll put you in the same box.
It's not fair and it's not starting from the place that each
person needs it to make it equal.
You need to put that adjustment in and able to get them to start
from the same playing field.
So we can't ignore it, it has to be raised and it has to be separated and
understood to measure it and grow impact on it and make it more inclusive so that
then hopefully we don't have to kind of call those spaces out and separate them.
Howard Bentham: We're sort of coming back to the conversation we're having
earlier about meritocracy and you talked about positive discrimination.
Positive, or affirmative action is allowed in the recruitment process, but it has to
be seen to be fair and I guess from people on the outside of that process, they
would go, well, that's clearly not fair...
Laura Ayoade: Yeah.
Howard Bentham: If it's the decision that goes against them.
So it's how you know whether that is actually fair or not, I guess.
Laura Ayoade: Yeah and it comes down to like measuring that, right?
Like in the UK, we understand that if you have a disability,
that means it's harder for you to apply, harder for you to interview,
harder for you to access the space.
Then we need to put in a reasonable adjustment for you to be able to do that.
If you're dyslexic, that might look.
Like, a product that goes over our website to make it easier to read
it and then when you're applying to understand that actually their
written English might not be perfect.
It might have spelling mistakes because they're dyslexic and then when they
get into the interview room, allowing adjustments for that and then thinking
about what adjustments might be needed for them to do their job successfully if
they're successful in achieving the role and that happens in lots of different
spaces, you'll see it in the US with university entry and like the ethnically
diverse people of colour like being allowed specific spaces because of data
that's proven and backed up the fact that they do not get the same opportunities.
So there's loads of reasons behind it and lots of data to support it.
Howard Bentham: We could make this a three hour podcast easily, but
let's try and move on and explore how businesses could implement some effective
strategies for equality, equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Share with us some of the best practice then integrating this
into different sectors of business.
Particularly thinking about the audience here want to have some sort of, something
they can use from this practically.
Some ideas on best practice.
Laura Ayoade: I think fundamentally I would come down to first and foremost
listening to your employees and like this can happen in a wide range of ways
but if you don't know what the employee experience is you cannot impact change
in terms of what is expected, what is the ideal, what is needed to drive it forward.
So first and foremost, listening to the current experiences of your people,
thinking about retention, it's listening to exit interviews first and foremost, but
also if you can get them, stay interviews.
People that could be at risk of flight, but you could save them through a stay
interview and understand what is not working for them, what is not like as
inclusive for them and why they would want to leave your place of business
to go to another is really key.
But then there's like all the other fundamentals first and foremost like data.
Data drives like how you build your diversity and understand what you
already have and what you're missing.
So collecting that is really important and different businesses
start from different spaces.
You probably all collect gender because you have a gender pay gap to do by law.
Most people are starting to collect ethnicity data because soon, hopefully,
the FST data pay gap will also come into play, but it's going beyond that.
Like, I would expect protected characteristics as a whole collected.
We know that we collect age because we have to give dates of birth and proof to
work in the UK, for example, nationality comes under the race part, so you'd have
that, but thinking beyond that, like, thinking about social mobility status
is a key one for a lot of businesses at the moment, and thinking about
collecting whether that person is of a specific kind of, I hate the word class,
because we're supposed to be away from it, but like, a part of society that
they currently sit in, and that can be collected in so many different ways
from free school meals to what job your parents held when you were at school,
typical situations, ONS are really good for thinking about where you start
from in those questions, but collecting all that data and getting a picture of
what your business actually looks like, because we know what gets measured,
gets done and you can't have impact on something that you don't know about.
So first and foremost, collect your data and measure it and then measure it in
terms of where you sit in the country.
Think about are you leveling up to the space that you're in or are you
falling short of that and how do you think about gaining that ground and
making sure that it's representative and then I suppose one of the biggest
pieces is the recruitment piece.
So thinking about how people access your business and enter it and
how they leave it is really key.
So making sure that there are allowances and adjustments for people that need
to enable you to get into the business.
Thinking about how you're portrayed on the outside, like what imagery is put out
about you, what conversations and talks and, ideas are put out about the business.
I know for Aston, if you Google it, it probably comes up with Cars and James
Bond, it's not a lot about our people and actually that needs to grow and that's
something we're working on right now is like our people stories and what we share
about our people because we have some fantastic ones from messages sewn into
the leather that's sewn into your unique car that you've designed from the sewers
so that if you tear it apart in 10 years time you can see like messages from it,
like it's so nice, those details that come in a personalised car, it's really cool.
So I think about like that piece and like how you attract people and then retaining
them as like the inner cultural work, how you build better culture, how you make
people feel included and that's h uge.
Howard Bentham: And what about the leadership and management
roles, especially in embedding ED& I into the culture?
Laura Ayoade: They have to be 100 percent on board.
You cannot drive it without leadership, purely because if you do, then you
do it for everybody beneath you, but then they're doing something else at
the top and it just seems like, oh, how can you stand there and preach
about this when the leaders are doing something completely different?
It has to be led from the top, you have to get by and if you don't
have it, then you can gain it.
It's not impossible.
There's appealing to the minds, which works really well with C Suite
because they want data and they want like analytics and feeding
that to them and you can pull that.
There's so many reports, McKinsey and other spaces that tell you
about the value of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
But then there's a feeling to hearts like thinking about who they are as a person
and what drives them and like why would they ever want to come to work to make
people feel excluded and I think getting them on ED& I training or unconscious
bias training or whatever it is.
I mean, unconscious bias training was big during 2020 2021.
I think we've moved on from that, but if you haven't even done
that, as a baseline to work from.
So getting them involved and checking their own bias, checking where they
come from and where they're starting from in their own situation and really
appealing to just their inner person of like, do you really want to come to
work and make somebody feel excluded?
Probably not.
Howard Bentham: This is a great time to bring in OxLEP's Leona
Weston into the conversation.
Leona, is there a healthy appetite for the businesses OxLEP are
supporting for guidance in such areas?
I know, for example, there's a long running series of women
in business events that you do.
Leona Weston: Yeah definitely, no, it's something that businesses in Oxfordshire
definitely have a real appetite for.
You mentioned our women in business events.
So we've had five gatherings over the last financial year, over 125 business
leaders, female entrepreneurs, female founders and it's honestly the best
opportunity to get some great female minds in the business world together.
The feeling in that room is just like nothing compares.
So it's a great opportunity for them to collaborate, to connect,
to share their inspiring stories, a real platform and opportunity.
So that's great, we've also had webinars and workshops in things like
neurodiversity in the workplace for some of our business leaders, diversity and
leadership training, all these different things and it's definitely something that
our businesses are asking for more of and we like to tailor our offer that way.
So yeah, it's a real positive feeling at these events and something
we're looking to do more of.
Howard Bentham: And OxLEP generally supports the SME community in Oxfordshire.
So we know where does getting support on equality, diversity and inclusion
approaches sit on your list of priorities for those businesses compared to other
issues, which we all know affect business.
Leona Weston: Yeah so as I said before, there's definitely a real appetite from
the businesses for support in these areas.
One thing I would say is obviously, you know, starting out in the business world,
we work with a lot of SMEs and smaller businesses and they're just trying to get
by and start off and operate and grow.
So a lot of the time they're caught up in the sort of day to day running,
how can I grow my customer base?
How can I grow my business?
Where can I meet my peers, other business leaders?
So a lot of them, they don't get to give it that time that I think
they'd really like to, they don't get to work on their EDI priorities
and putting that into action.
So, it's definitely not something that we're seeing all the time, but
as I said, we tailor our offer to what businesses are looking for, responding
to our business support tool, so there's definitely a hunger there to some extent.
Howard Bentham: I was fascinated with hearing what Laura was saying
there about getting out into the education community, into schools
and obviously with your background as well through apprenticeships.
But what about the lack of opportunities for some people due
to their socioeconomic position.
Are there programs in place to help elevate people's employability chances?
Leona Weston: Yeah, so I think this is one of the areas that,
at OxLEP we're the most proud of.
So our No Limits programme that the OxLEP skills team works on, we work with
Aspire and Sophia in the county to try and support those that are furthest from
employment or are struggling to enter employment by offering support so they
can receive up to 30 hours of one to one support alongside interview training,
CV skills, application skills, just to support those who are struggling to enter
the employment through things like, we work with ethnic minority communities, we
work with those who clinically extremely vulnerable those who struggle as a result
of the digital divide, food poverty, and just working alongside them to give them
what they need, whether that's access to digital tools or a laptop, transport,
those skills that I mentioned earlier.
So it's, something that we're definitely very aware of at OxLEP and
we're definitely putting things into place to do what we can to support
those and businesses in the county to understand a bit more about it as well.
Howard Bentham: Perhaps you want to pick up Laura, on, something Leona is saying
there, but I'm intrigued as to how smaller businesses and startups can effectively
implement ED& I when there are so many other pressures on very, very few staff,
to keep the thing running day to day.
Laura Ayoade: I think it's interesting though because I think a smaller
business can do it much more easily.
If you put it in your foundations then it should grow organically and
I think for some of the first things is having just some awareness of what
the inclusion looks like and what diversity looks like in your area.
So embarking on like a free webinar or podcast or whatever it is around diversity
and inclusion would give you the thought process as an owner of a business or as
somebody leading that business to consider when you're making decisions around
like new hires and things like that.
It's really easy and quick to pull data around the diversity in the
area of Oxford and thinking about what your company should look like.
So it would probably take you a few hours just to figure out that and then
hopefully it would just grow organically because actually if you get it right at
the foundation level, the outlook of your business will be broader anyway because
you're already kind of including everyone.
It will become more appealing to more people very quickly.
It will become talked about and hopefully more successful because of that.
So I think if they were to do two things is figure out the diversity of the
area and like what your company makeup should look like and secondly, just get
yourself on a free webinar on ED& I and just get some kind of thought process
behind diversity and inclusion and what it should mean to your business.
Howard Bentham: And maybe something you can both add here, because I'm
intrigued as to what are the best ways to implement communication within businesses
to make this happen and I guess also where OxLEP are really, really strong
is getting that communication between businesses to share best practice.
Take your thoughts on that.
Leona Weston: Yeah, definitely.
No, I think at OxLEP we're really keen to engage our business community
with their peer networks, peer groups, through things like Women in Business.
We have other peer network programmes just to enable communities and
businesses of all different shapes and sizes to talk to each other, to share
their experiences and it might be that someone's done something that's really
sort of revolutionary that they, another business hasn't even thought about.
It's just having that shared space to actually talk about it and, Oh, I've
not prioritised that, but actually, if you're saying it's easier, then maybe it's
something I can implement now as well.
So yeah, I think it's definitely vital that our business community
keeps talking and we keep giving them that platform to do so.
Laura Ayoade: In fact, actually, I think it's such a great space to have somewhere
that lots of businesses can talk to each other and learn from best practice.
It's exactly what business in the community was set up to do, right?
It's the largest and oldest of it, like in terms of a responsible business network
and thinking about, okay, how can we learn from each other and being partnered
with some of the greatest out there?
So it's like a small scale version of that and it's been always
successful, the more you can learn, the more you can share, the better.
What is problematic is when people gatekeep stuff, and you can't share
it, and it's actually, well we're all just striving for the same success,
why not kind of share in that and hope for the best for everybody?
Howard Bentham: Just the bit you said earlier that the word
bias came up in conversation.
Do you accept that even with a diverse workforce, that bias can still be
a problem, people bring biases.
Whatever group you want to put people in, you still come with some bias.
Give us some thoughts on how that can be managed.
Laura Ayoade: Yeah, a hundred percent and I think it comes down to just
understanding what your biases are.
So there's lots of things that people can do.
You can do a Harvard bias test, it's completely free and this gives
you insight into your bias around people, because that's where I think
it matters most in the workplace.
You probably both have a preference over which apples you prefer, red or green.
I don't know.
I'm a green kind of person, or maybe a pink lady somewhere in the middle, but
um, I don't really like red apples, but a lot of people do, including Google.
They have a bias around red apples because they look like more appealing, snow white,
and all that kind of background, right?
And that bias helps you make decisions on which apples you're going to buy.
If you didn't have a bias at all, it would take you forever to go to your food
shop, as an example, because you wouldn't have any preferences over the food you're
going to buy, it'd just take you hours.
And so those biases are really helpful in life.
Bias gets us through life, bias helps us make decisions, so they're not all bad.
What is a problem is when you're in business and those biases that you
have towards people or groups of people start helping you make decisions about
those people and so that's where I would challenge it, which is why I think Harvard
Bias Test is really good because you can be aware of like your preference.
It tells you your preferences towards specific groups, like who you would
leverage and I mean, mine is possibly fairly obvious to me, like mine was
a preference towards people of color and elevating them because I've
worked in racial justice, right?
That's normal.
So that's a bias, that's positive in terms of, like, I would positively
discriminate towards those people and obviously that's not allowed.
So I have to think about dialing that back down to bring it back in line
with others and then there's people that you would positively discriminate
against in a negative descrimination where I wouldn't put them forward as
much, for example and then that helps you be aware of it when you're hiring.
So if you're faced with any of those people that you would be positive or
negative towards, you can be like, okay, I need to like stamp that out
and like look at the merit and kind of maybe get somebody else in the
room to support me on this so that I don't make a biased decision.
I think that's where it matters is when you're making decisions
based on your bias towards people.
Howard Bentham: As you just said that, that can suddenly become
a really long process because you've got two, three, four pairs
of eyes trying to not be biased.
Laura Ayoade: And this is why we encourage panels of people when hiring.
One to one hiring is not ideal because you will always have some inherent
bias even if you try something out.
Yeah, some might, but I would challenge it to make sure that it was based on their
merit and whether it's the right adds to your business rather than the fit.
So I would encourage panels of people and that should be made up of
people that represent your society.
So, for Oxford, it's probably one man, one woman, possibly a non binary or
trans base, and range of ethnicities and possibly disabilities, for example.
Howard Bentham: Laura and Leona, thank you both for the moment.
We'll chat again shortly.
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Howard Bentham: Let's speak more with Laura Ayoade, the first ever ED& I lead at
Aston Martin, and Leona Weston from OxLEP.
Laura, let's look ahead if we can.
What's your vision of the future of ED& I within the automotive industry and
how do you plan to contribute to it?
Laura Ayoade: Sure, it's interesting because ED& I as a whole, globally,
is like changing at the moment.
I think there has been a period of it becoming quite a fad or a thing to focus
on at the moment, especially kind of post 2020 and it's becoming a bit of a
shift because there's lots of people in diversity and inclusion that, that kind
of work in the space but have like a HR background for example that I actually
find conflicting because HR is very kind of policy and process driven and
ED& I has a lot more kind of heart to it and empathy from my perspective and
thinking about how people actually feel rather than just following a policy or
process so it's changing definitely and people are thinking about whether they
want to keep it in house, they want the outsourced consultancy and also, I think
just because of the economic crisis, some people think it's nice to have, but
actually it's when they need it most is when people are under pressure because
it's when you become less inclusive.
So you've seen businesses outsource or just not have one at all, which is
quite scary for the world of ED& I.
But for the automotive industry, it's interesting that
there are collective goals.
We have the Automotive 30 Club that is achieving 30 percent women
in the business areas by 2030, hopefully, or before if possible.
We also have SMMT.
They're focusing right now on collection of data for diversity and inclusion,
and thinking about how they work as a collective and overarching kind of
space that supports all automotives and manufacturers into becoming
more inclusive and more diverse.
So there's some really key initiatives within the industry that are really
striving and driving it forward.
So I am hopeful that all businesses within automotive will be working
towards at least gender equality within the kind of next five years.
I know that's a key metric that a lot of people are placing on themselves and
then hopefully a start to kind of look ahead beyond just gender and thinking
about the other protected characteristics.
Of course, with everybody that comes into business, there is that intersectionality.
So you will bring kind of disabled, you'll bring ethnically diverse people, you'll
bring lots of different people into space by hitting a gender metric by default.
But then they need to measure up those and see if they're kind of
achieving their best practice.
So the hope is that it will be there.
The 30 percent women in particular, especially at leadership level, I'm
not sure if we'll get there given the 22 percent currently in the market.
But to me, that's not a failure.
Like if we're working towards it and we increase, I mean, we've increased
already from 14 to 17 percent over the two years I've been there.
If we increase up to the 22%, we can at least say that we're on a journey, we've
done the work, we've achieved parity with the industry and what's available to us
and we're tapping into that pipeline and now we're going back to schools to educate
young girls into thinking about a career with automotive or manufacturing and
engineering and encouraging them into more STEM subjects so that they can consider
a life that might be slightly different to their everyday subjects at school.
So I think when we hit 2030, whether we hit 30 percent or not, an
improvement is an improvement, right?
And like, we should measure that and track that and say, well done, but let's
think about how we continue to build diverse pipeline for all and take it as
a business responsibility that it's not just schools to sit down and work on.
It's for all of us to encourage young girls into STEM.
Howard Bentham: With your crystal ball looking five, maybe
further at 10, maybe years ahead.
Are you excited about ED&I or are you worried about it?
Just picking up on what you said there.
Laura Ayoade: I think a bit of both.
I think like with all things, when things go through like a turning
point, it has a potential to grow massively and it'd be amazing.
I'm worried about it in terms of, I wish it was regulated,
it's probably my hope for it.
I wish that people would have a specific set of tools that they need to be able to
achieve within the industry to make sure they are legitimate in their purpose and
what they're achieving because if you come from a very different background and have
no expertise in it, but you have something that kind of aligns, because of course
we need to work with HR professionals.
Like, if I didn't have my HR business partners, I couldn't do half my job.
They're really important and they're intrinsic to my work.
But watching them deliver my ED& I training sometimes pulls up issues
because they're like, I don't really get that, like that doesn't sit with me.
I don't understand.
Like that doesn't make sense and so it highlights the differences between me
and them because I wholeheartedly have based my life in like an ED& I space
and I'm willing to do the work and it's kind of because it is a passion
area, like my downtime is like picking up on the political issues and the
contextual situations that are happening.
We are an apolitical organisation at Aston Martin, but I'm quite a political
person in terms of those are the things that matter to me, like I would love to
be working towards peace in the Middle East and some spaces like that because
of course that's not inclusive at all and I think that's where my worry is,
enabling and empowering people to do EDI jobs that are not fully qualified.
I don't know if that's the right word, but like fully embedded in it and
understand the kind of tiny details and nuances because if you have someone
doing the job that doesn't really know those spaces, it's dangerous.
These are people's lives, like my job, impacts people's lives every
day and it has the potential to destroy those lives as well and
it's the same in teaching, right?
Like, it's why it follows through from my teaching experience, because if I choose
to ignore a child in the classroom, I completely impact their entire career.
I'll probably be remembered as that teacher that made them feel differently.
We all have those, and that's really important to me.
So, I think it's really important that ED& I professionals continue to do the
work and to, spend time on themselves and updating themselves with the contextual
and the political situations that are happening around them because they
impact how people show up every day.
Howard Bentham: Leona, that knowledge side of things is where OxLEP can
be a really useful resource here in terms of knowledge around ED& I.
Leona Weston: Yes, yeah, absolutely.
At OxLEP, we're really keen on making sure that we listen to all our businesses and
share knowledge with them that they need.
So where possible, we will, refer them to webinars and
workshops and things like that.
But also we will sign posts where we don't have that expertise, and we
can offer support a different way.
So we would really urge businesses to fill out our business support tool and
we will make sure that they receive the support they need to one way or another.
Howard Bentham: Let's have some final advice, if you would, Laura.
Firstly, to other professionals who are starting their careers in
ED& I, what would you say to them?
Laura Ayoade: I'd probably say, like, make sure that it's a passion
driving force behind it for you.
So, you don't get bored because it is obviously people's lives.
You shouldn't be getting bored with people's lives,
like that's really important.
But think about wide ranging opportunities into ED& I as well.
Like one of the best experiences I had was working for business in the
community because I consulted over 30 organisations that were all very different
from each other, from governmental organisations to sports organisations,
to banking organisations, and it gave me a breadth of experience in terms of
what it looked like in house for each different department and individual
case from corporate to SMEs and so on.
So I would definitely say like that experience is really key and if
you can get it, take it with both hands and roll with it because I
think that can give you a breadth of information and also it forces you,
right, to build your own knowledge.
You have to come up prepared, you have to know your stuff.
Like, if you're going to be talking to a governmental space, you're going to need
to know what's going on in the government.
If you're talking to an international space, you're going to need to know their
space a little bit, so you're going to have to do a bit of research and I think
that research thing is key, like, you're going to be forever a student in ED&
I, so be prepared to continue learning.
Howard Bentham: It's a great line.
Finally, what are the most important takeaways for a company looking to
integrate diversity and inclusion into their daily values and how can
they I guess ensure their efforts lead to meaningful and lasting change.
Laura Ayoade: I think, listen to understand, not to be responding.
Too many people listen to respond to things and actually listening
to understand is more important.
I think employees would benefit more from you taking away their experiences and
holding that for a second and thinking, okay, what's good about this, but what's
bad about it and how can we impact change rather than let me just quickly respond to
it and then it's kind of done because it's not, it's an entire employee life cycle.
So, continuously listening and listening to understand
rather than to respond is key.
Howard Bentham: Thanks, Laura, that's amazing to talk to you.
Huge thanks to Laura Ayoade, Equity, Diversity and
Inclusion Lead at Aston Martin.
A big thank you also to OxLEPs Leona Weston and thank you
for listening to OxTalks.
There are a growing number of editions of OxTalks available from
where you normally get your podcasts.
Check out some of the previous editions, including Oxford University
Innovation's Andrea Stewart on how to find the right business
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You can hear from James Clarke, the Managing Director of Hook Norton
Brewery, with a guide to keeping up with changing times in business.
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Business support in Oxfordshire is very close at hand.
OxLEP is at your service.
The OxLEP business support tool can signpost you to expert
help in a matter of minutes.
Why not take a look?
Find it on our website, Oxfordshirelep.
com.
But for now, from the whole OxLEP team, and from me, Howard Bentham, it's goodbye.