Gender diversity initiatives
GC explores what corporate counsel can do to further diversity – in their in-house legal department, the wider organisation, or throughout the business world. We pick the brains of general counsel across the globe about programmes they’ve pioneered or adopted to create a diverse workplace. In the first in a series of case studies, this issue we look at gender diversity.
Many leading GCs feel that heads of legal are ideally placed as influencers in their corporation to encourage policies and processes that foster diversity of thought – and to move away from the stereotype of a corporate world filled with middle-aged, straight, white males.
Matthew Flood, general counsel for UK company Ingeus, which provides employability programmes, justice services, skills training and health-related support for people, thinks so. He has found that the head of legal occupies a respected position, with more sway over matters outside the law than he had imagined before he founded an LGBT network at his previous organisation. Leaders should drive change, he says, and for him this meant taking the bull by the horns, and not waiting for a directive to come from elsewhere in the executive team. Compliance often falls within the legal head’s remit and, frequently, so does ethics. Both fit comfortably with Matthew’s sense of what a lawyer should be: ‘I think if you can do it, and no one else is doing it, then you should do it – if it’s the right thing to do.’
