Transcript:
Welcome to This is the North podcast, your source of transformative conversation, an intentional challenge to the systems holding back the north of England. Hosted by Alison Dunn, an award winning charity chief executive and former solicitor. This podcast is supported by Society Matters Community Interest Company.
And it’s dedicated to curating and sharing knowledge, powering the change we need for a more equal and inclusive society. Hello and welcome to This is the North. I’m your host, Alison Dunn, and I’m joined today Katy Talikowska, who is the CEO of the Valuable 500, an organisation dedicated to ensuring disability is a boardroom priority. Katy, welcome to This is the North. Thank you so much, Alison. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be with you today.
Thank you so much for having me. The privilege is all ours, Katy. But let’s start with the very basics. What is Valuable 500 and what does it hope to achieve? Perfect. Okay. So the Valuable 500 is the world’s second largest global business partnership. Second after UN Global Compact. In real terms, and forgive me for throwing some stats at you this isn’t to show off, but it’s to give you a sense of scale.
So with a Valuable 500, 500 pertains to the now 519 companies that we work with, global companies that we work with. to end disability exclusion in business. That is our stated mission. So 519 global companies that makes up just over 23 million employees worldwide. And our companies are headquartered in 41 countries operating in 64 sectors.
And together as a force, a formidable force, they have a combined market cap of 23 trillion. US dollars. So as I said that I’m not saying that to show off, but to, I suppose to give an idea of the potential power and the might of these organizations to truly drive system change. And that really is what we do at Valuable 500.
So I always describe the Valuable 500 as Almost sort of Cupid or a matchmaker or a bridge broker. So if you imagine we sit in the middle, we partner with our 519 companies and we are also lucky enough to partner with over 90 global disability experts. So what we do is we work in the middle, we have a clear strategy that I can come on to and outline in a moment, but effectively we sit in the middle, we don’t claim to be the experts, we don’t claim to have all the answers, but what we are is a very focused team on this mission to drive disability exclusion.
Working with the might of our companies and understanding their problems, their challenges, the challenges that they face within the workplace in terms of disability inclusion, and we match make them with our disability community who have programs who have initiatives who have training and can help them.
So that. That relatively simply put, I hope, is us, the Valuable 500. But but just to reiterate our mission is to end disability exclusion in business. And a beat on that, actually. We work exclusively at present with the private, with the corporate sector. Because we believe that business can do really, to be honest, in the matter of a boardroom meeting, they can make those decisions.
They can drive change in a matter of minutes versus perhaps governments, other stakeholders that it can take decades to do so we work with corporates and we focus on the C suite leadership to drive that change because we feel that they really are in the driving seat. to do that. 23 million employees across the globe.
That is a huge number because I’m sure I read somewhere an article that you’d written that says that as many as one in five people identify as disabled in the global. . economy, which is a big number, isn’t it? Yeah, that is. And to take that further, if the definition of what people refer to as lived disability experience, that is an individual who self identifies and having a disability, but also if you are a carer, but then if you add in friends and family.
You are really getting to over 50 percent of the population. And the other thing I would say, and we can perhaps come on to talk about intersectionality a little bit later, but the reality is that the disabled community, let’s call it such, is a group, is a community that any of us can join. At any stage in our life, over 80 percent of disabilities are required throughout one’s life.
And that can be through accidents that can be through illness and obviously some disabilities are temporary, but I think very often it’s really important for people to understand that. Even if your life right now means that you perhaps don’t understand what it is to be disabled and you understand how society can disable people because that is a massive problem but the reality is any of us can become disabled at any time or a close family member can become disabled at any time.
So it really is for me, just a human imperative that we understand. The needs of the disabled community and we create a business environment and by extension, a society that values everybody and really takes that human first approach. And actually I ended that community myself about seven years ago with , the birth of my grandson, who I’ve talked on this podcast many times who is an autistic nonverbal child.
You’re right. We can enter the community at any time. It’s not necessarily something that is with us our whole lives. And you’ve also talked about being in 41 different countries. Are there different approaches and perceptions of disability across those countries, which presumably are spread across different continents with very different lenses of the world?
So if I start perhaps from a governmental perspective, not going too deep and then onto more of a cultural, but the reality is in different countries, there are different sets of laws and legislations around disability. So for example if I take Japan, Japan is a country that is very dear to our heart.
Our Nippon Foundation. And without going off on a tangent, but I’d love to talk a little bit when I can about our Accountability Summit that we’re holding in Japan, SYNC25. But over, over 75 of our companies are Japan based. And legally, for a person with a disability, in order to claim any form of disability benefit, you have to self identify.
You have to have a disability certificate. So on one hand, you would say this is good because that means that Anybody and everybody with a disability, even if they have disabilities, which are take, for example, someone who’s neurodivergent, your grandson, for example, neurodivergent people are able to mask.
They may feel for a whole myriad of reasons, not comfortable sharing their whole self being in educational, being in employment situation, they’re able to mask. So it’s a big issue culturally. In lots of countries to certainly within the workforce to create the right culture where people feel comfortable self identifying as being disabled, being able to talk to their employer about reasonable accommodations and what they need to live their best life and in order to contribute to the workplace.
So on one hand, the fact that in Japan. You are legally obliged if you want any form of a benefit to disclose that to your employer. On one hand, you could say that is a good thing, but actually it just becomes a bit of a tick box and then the workplace adjustments don’t come in. So Japan is one issue.
There’s different legislation across Europe as well. In Germany, you also have to disclose by law to an employer. So there are different legislative factors, but also the reality is that. I feel there is a way to go, but certainly from a UK perspective, I think we are seeing more positive progress within the world of disability inclusion.
There’s a lot more openness, a lot more understanding, a greater level of education, but the reality is in some countries China is a challenge for a lot of our companies. As I said, we spoke about the fact that we are global and I was talking about the different countries that we were headquartered in, not exclusively, but when I talked to our global organizations about their global D and I policies and their global disability inclusion policies.
They say that whilst they are clear at a global level and they get a lot of traction in certain markets, there are other areas and corners of the world where there is just a lack of education and a lack of understanding. So even as a global organization, rolling something out , within the silo of their own organization can be very hard because of those cultural differences.
And again, I don’t want to get so drawn into politics, but if you think about the situation in the U. S. right now with the anti woke movement and, whatever may happen something will happen, whatever happens on the 5th of November, there are challenges, we, again, talking to our US headquartered companies, D& I budgets are being slashed, D& I roles are being deprioritized, there, is a challenge, so there are some, cultural and geopolitical headwinds that we definitely need to be aware of. But I would say, this is me being an optimist and actually I’m in a privileged and enviable position where I am able to see the progress that is being made.
I am heartened by the progress that is being made in the UK specifically. Now, Katy, I’m definitely going to want to talk to you some more about walkism all of those things and the summit and what you hope to get out of that. But before we go there, can you tell me what brought you personally to the Valuable 500?
Because I believe that you previously worked in advertising. That is very true. And so I spent, showing my age I spent 32 years working in advertising. So out of university, I got a job as a graduate trainee and the majority of my professional career before joining the Valuable 500, I joined the Valuable 500 as CEO in June of last year.
So I’m just over a year enrolled, but yes, the majority of my time was in advertising. And I was working in sort of client service, client management. And yeah, it’s really interesting. If I take you back to 2016, I was the account lead for Mars Wrigley Confectionery. And one of the specific brands that I was looking after, you can imagine I was very popular with my coworkers cause I used to get a lot of freebies, I was overseeing more teasers.
And I’ve shared this story because it was, it’s pertinent because it was really a moment of. A moment of reflection and moment of reckoning for me. So there I am leading a brand responsible for the communications for Maltesers, is a very well loved confectionery brand. And the reality was our advertising was a bit vanilla.
It was doing all right, but it really wasn’t, it really wasn’t delivering for the brand. And in a. Beautiful moment of I suppose serendipity. I received an email from Channel 4. This is when the Rio Paralympics were just about to start in the August of 2016 and Channel 4 were the official broadcaster and they were launching their diversity in advertising award.
This was the inaugural one and they had run a survey, they did an audit looking at the state of representation of people with disabilities in UK advertising. And the results were frightening to say the least. Less than one percent of the protagonists , across all of UK adverts were people with a disability.
And what was even scary is when you dug a little bit deeper, the protagonists were, they were actors, they were people without disabilities. being asked to act and pretend that they had a disability. So sitting in a wheelchair, okay. So it was a pretty reprehensible and torrid state of affairs.
And so Channel 4, very rightly, credit to them, wanted to readdress that. And they laid down the gauntlet. To say, for the first time, we want you to authentically represent people with advertising in your brand campaign. And they dangled a carrot, of a million pounds worth of free airtime. So the absolute right motivation to do what was right by society and for the disabled community.
But with this pandemic. million pounds worth of airtime and the ability to air the winning adverts within the center break of the opening ceremony of the Paralympics. So I saw this and I, I discussed it with my team and we saw this as a, we saw this as a bit of a no brainer to point of phrase and we went to Mars, and we had a fantastically supportive client, Mitch Oliver, she’s still at Mars, and said, look, we want to put our heads in our ring.
We think we really need to do this for Maltesers. We need to tell new stories. We need to tell different stories, more engaging stories from different, unique perspectives. And we want to tell the stories of people with disabilities within our communication. So we entered the competition. Really important to say that we partnered with scope.
It would have been wrong for us as a team who in the main, we did have an account manager a disabled lady and a wheelchair user who was integral within the campaign, but you will probably know Alison within the disabled community, there is the clarion cry or a mantra of nothing about us without us.
It is absolutely critical for any brand, any business. Anybody with a service or a product that if you want to include people with disabilities and allow them to use your products, your services, you must bring in their voices and their lived experience every step of the way. So we did that with the creative development.
It was a massive unlock. We won the competition and the advertising campaign the winning campaign was, and still is. The single most successful piece of advertising that Maltesers has done in its 18 year history of the campaign. So that was really important.
And I think for me, part of the catalyst for entering was, Frankly, it would be exciting. Wouldn’t it be great if we won, we get a million pounds worth of airtime. We’re going to a lot of great PR. I’ll be really honest , with my brand hat on, but as a person who had been responsible for creating and developing the strategy and the creative for advertising.
And if somebody had said to me, are you a decent human being? Are you inclusive? Are you open? I would have said absolutely. And yet I realized I was part of the problem. Just because going back to my original point at that time, I had no lived disability experience that has subsequently changed through family, and so to be frank, it’s not an excuse, but it just wasn’t on my radar.
So there I was, as I said, with a need to do cut through advertising for one of my brands. having a personal moment of reflection, realizing that unwittingly I was actually part of the problem and just wanting to drive that change. So that really, was the start of my personal professional journey towards disability inclusion and understanding how It is a moral imperative, and actually because of the results of the campaign, you realize it is a business imperative.
You referenced before, Alison, one in five of the global population identifies living with a disability. As a brand, who let’s be blunt, wants to sell, why would you automatically and from the get go exclude, siphon off, 20 percent of your potential target market, it just doesn’t make sense.
So, that, happened and then forgive me, I hope I’m not going on with the world’s longest answer. It’s fascinating and everybody remembers those adverts as well. , and they still play occasionally, don’t they? They were really They do. I have to say they are still relevant.
And the reality is they were real stories from real disabled women. It wasn’t fabricated by, creative sitting in their sort of swanky Soho offices. I referenced partnering with scope and we ran some consumer research groups with disabled women and we spoke to them about their lives.
And if you remember the ads, the Maltesers campaign is about looking on the lighter side. And it’s about laughing at those embarrassing moments, those funny anecdotes, those stories that you send with your friends. And I think what was really powerful is there were women laughing about, about sex, about silly, embarrassing moments.
You don’t have to focus in on, on, on deeper, more fundamental issues. This shouldn’t be, this shouldn’t be a light bulb moment, but people with disabilities laugh at the same things as you and I, cry at the same things as you and I get angry by the same things as you and I, hence my mantra about it’s a human first approach to help humans.
So the Maltesers campaign was successful, still relevant, but it was through that, that I met Caroline Casey, the Founder of the Valuable 500. I was introduced to her by an amazing woman, Sam Phillips, who is one of our trustees. And she knew what I’d done with Maltesers. I’d spoken to her about what I was trying to do with my other clients.
Because again, we had this unlock. We could say, look, it works. Not only is it the right thing to do, but you’ll sell more product. So I was on a, I was on a bit of a mission. And I met Caroline in 2018 and she was about to launch the Valuable 500. She had secured a main stage slot at Davos through the World Economic Forum in the January of 2019. So six months prior to that, she was a one woman banned on a mission to end disability exclusion and to get 500, hence the Valuable 500, 500 CEOs to sign up and make a commitment. To use her language, end the CEO silence on disability inclusion and start putting disability inclusion seriously and in a meaningful way on the boardroom agenda.
Because her observation, which was very true, was that companies were rightly Starting to hire chief diversity, inclusion and equity officers. And very rightly, they were talking about race and gender and sexual orientation, but no one was talking about disability. So she said this has to change.
So brilliant as Caroline is, I wanted to help and support and I had a brilliant CEO at the time. So we created at my advertising agency, a pro bono campaign to help Caroline launch the Valuable 500. So that was the start of my relationship with Caroline Casey and the Valuable 500. From the outside but I remained a staunch advocate and ally and follower of all the fantastic work and achievements of the Valuable 500.
And then I was lucky enough in January of last year to get a call to say, we’re looking to change our leadership team as we pivot and move into a new phase for our organization. Would you be interested in in being part of the recruitment process? And three months later, I was lucky enough to be appointed and here I am.
So forgive me, Alison, that is a long answer, but it’s a great answer. And it brings me lots more questions. I’m sure Caroline sounds absolutely wonderful, but as a one woman mission you’ve described are there, how on earth does she get a slot on the stage at Davos? The world needs more Carolines.
Okay. So Caroline is a, is an entrepreneur and an activist at heart. She often refers to herself as a dangerous dreamer and Caroline as a woman who is registered legally blind and had previously worked in Accenture and had witnessed firsthand the challenges for people with disabilities.
And this was someone who had been able to hide her disability. And so I think for Caroline, she had witnessed firsthand the problem within organizations and the lack of. Workforce representation for people with disabilities. And she wanted to drive that change.
And Caroline was able to secure the slot at Davos because prior to that, the year prior One Young World, which is often referred to as junior Davos, it’s a focus on business leaders, but young up and coming leaders they were running their One Young World conference. in Bogota, in Colombia, and Caroline had tried to get a speaking slot there, and she was unknown, so she just wasn’t able to.
So in true Caroline style, as a blind woman, and a blind woman with a passion for riding, she rode a horse from Cartagena in Colombia, through to Bogota, to the conference. And depending on who you believe, and this is the story that I want to believe, I want to believe that she actually rode the horse into the conference venue.
I think between you and me and the listeners, she probably tethered it outside.
I’m going to manifest that she didn’t have an official speaking slots, but she knew that Paul Polman, who was the CEO of Unilever was there. And this is where Caroline is so shrewd because on one hand, She goes a bit rogue and she’s a bit maverick, but sometimes if you want to get shit done, then you’ve got to bend the rules a little bit and got to take those chances.
But she’s a very smart human and she knew he was going to be there. And I think it was during a break. She managed to get in, got up on stage, said her bit, and it was her first call to action. And she said, I know we’ve got current C-Suite leaders or aspiring C-Suite leaders in here. Stand with me and let’s change the world.
Let’s end disability exclusion. And I just need a commitment of one CEO. to stand with me on stage and say that you’re going to put disability inclusion on your board agenda. So Paul Polman joined her another incredible man who we’re lucky enough to work with still. He is the chair of our foundation board because we’re now a charity with a foundation with charitable status.
Jeff Dodds, who was COO of Virgin Media Group. He’s now CEO of Formula E. He also joined, he stood up. So Caroline, in that moment, was able to get two phenomenal, influential, passionate C suite leaders. And that really was the catalyst having those first two. And then because of the attention that she got through the One Young World, let’s call it adventure.
She then was invited by the World Economic Forum to go to Davos. So whether or not that’s a formula that can be replicated, I don’t know, but I think that mindset and that, real passion and belief, I think that’s what Yeah, that’s what people like Caroline bring to the world. And that’s certainly what the world needs.
She just sounds absolutely amazing. And since that time, as you’ve said, you’ve had another 519 organizations with global impact sign up. But how do you work with companies that perhaps need a little bit more persuasion? Because not everybody’s going to come willingly, are they? Some people need a little bit more of a push.
What’s the magic ingredient to get them through the door? Yeah, thank you. So it’s a really good question. And actually, I think happily, if we’re having a conversation with a company, and they are a little bit reticent to, to be part of the Valuable 500, it isn’t because they need to be convinced of our mission and it’s that that they are anti it.
We don’t have to make the case. A lot of the companies say we totally understand that this is the right thing to do. If our companies if potential companies are reticent and hesitant, it is because they are concerned that they are not doing enough. So they look at our website and they look at all the phenomenal companies we’ve got.
Apple, Microsoft, Google, Sony. It’s no coincidence that a lot of the tech giants who work in the world of innovation are particularly good around innovation and accessibility in the world of disability inclusion. We work with BBC, we work with Sky, we work with EY, Deloitte.
I’m not going to name all 519, but they go on and they go. And honestly, a very humble reaction is. We don’t think that we are good enough yet to be part of the Valuable 500. We are worried that we are not doing enough. So we’re going to try and we’re going to do our best.
Come back to us in a couple of years when we think almost we are worthy of being shoulder to shoulder with those other companies. So my response happily is very easy. And then the majority of the cases it does work because I think the thing for us is. No one has got it right yet. Sadly, it is not job done for anyone.
Even our most progressive and advanced of our companies, and this is what is so brilliant and so inspiring for me. Genuinely is the goodness me . There’s so much still to be done. Now the ethos of the Valuable 500, it’s really about radical collaboration. We talk about taking Synchronised Collective Action with our company.
So this is addressing the same problem at the same time. So even if you are a company who is at a very nascent sort of embryonic stage of let’s call it your disability inclusion journey, that doesn’t matter. We just need like minded people who understand that business needs to change. And so we have different companies on different stages.
We have three strategic areas of focus. Some are advanced in one area and haven’t even started in the other, but through our network, through this power of radical collaboration and this sense of community, really, one big committed community, we help each other.
We share best practice, we share challenges, and then you start to get that rising tide. But we don’t we don’t chastise or demonise anyone who hasn’t, who isn’t particularly progressed. All we ask of a company is they have the right mindset and they are committed to taking the right steps and learning and growing together and taking that Synchronised Collective Action.
So, happily, it isn’t a case of having to convince them why Disability inclusion matters and why it is both a social imperative and a business imperative without exception. All the companies that we speak to are on board. It is just this sense of we haven’t done enough yet. And are we comfortable being in this same kind of company? So it actually comes from quite a heartfelt place. But as I said, happily, the answer is join us because then we can help fast track. We can share that best practice and resource and we can drive system change. And I know this is, I know this is a very complicated area.
You’ve chosen to focus on three aims, haven’t you? And it would be really good if you could share those aims with our listeners. But also, if you could share with us a little bit about what positive changes business see when they truly embrace all that Valuable 500 has to offer. Yes, of course. So if I start with the three strategic areas of focus, so we focus on inclusive leadership, inclusive reporting, so that is your workforce representation, understanding the makeup of your company, and then inclusive representation.
And to clarify, when we talk about inclusive representation, this is echoing back to what I was sharing with Maltesers, this is the authentic representation of people with disabilities within your internal corporate communication and also your external, communication.
So this is really within the sphere of your marketing mix and the products and the services that you are creating, making sure. As I said before, nothing about us without us, which is now changing interestingly and rightly to nothing without us. So bringing in, representing the voices of the disabled community across every facet of your communication.
So that’s what we mean around inclusive representation and then inclusive reporting and inclusive leadership. And if I can just take a beat on inclusive leadership. I mentioned that, the ethos of the Valuable 500 and Caroline’s mission was to get the CEOs to sign up. Now, I, mentioned this at the beginning, this isn’t an ego driven thing where we just want to hang out with the big cheeses, the big boardrooms.
It is because they are in the driving seat of change. And , let’s face it, is just a reality of the corporate world. It is the leaders who hold the purse strings. It is the leaders who can make those decisions and who can elicit that change. So making sure that the leaders of our companies.
Understand the imperative and the benefits of being inclusive is really critical. So that is a cultural piece really within the organization, because I think to quote American management consultant, Peter Drucker, he talks about he talks about culture, eating strategy a company can invest and have brilliant programs and training initiatives and policies and procedures in place.
But if the culture isn’t right. The culture determines whether or not those policies and initiatives live or die, to be frank. And if you have a C-Suite leader openly talking about disability inclusion, then that can change the culture overnight. So inclusive leadership, inclusive reporting, and inclusive representation are our three areas of focus.
And Alison, you were also asking about, about progress , yeah. So when they get it right, what benefits can they expect to see? It’s really important in terms of employee retention. So we know from talking to our companies that, if a company is investing in inclusive recruitment processes, so that’s a brilliant and necessary first step to bring people with disabilities into the workforce. But once people with disabilities have been two to three years within an organization, we see that there’s a challenge over retention. So the attrition rate, that the turnover rates for people with disabilities is more than eight times higher than people without disabilities. Now that for me is fairly shocking because you think hang on, this is a company that has made this decision to invest in the accessible technology for your recruitment invest in training, all the inclusive and best sort of accessible recruitment best practices.
So one would, I think, rightly assume that , they’re one of the good guys, but once you’re investing in people, what is happening , so if you get that cultural unlock piece, and again, I would focus actually on one of our, KPIs as part of our inclusive reporting SCA that we talk to our companies about one of them is around the importance of setting up employee resource groups, ERGs, never, ever.
Underestimate the power of almost that, let’s call it that sort of grassroots activism within an organization. The first question we say to companies is does your company have a disability specific employee resource group in place? and critically with an executive sponsor. It isn’t just for a group to get together in their lunch break.
This has to be formally recognized with an executive sponsor. Because again, within that, I suppose it’s a parallel with my Maltesers research group. You have a group of people with lived disability experience who have got that in and with that C-Suite sponsor. To talk about in reality, what is the experience of me as a disabled person within this organization?
Because as I say, the policies, the strategies, all the good initiatives are one thing, but there can be other things going on that just mean that they’re not singing and they’re not firing. Having an ERG in place is really critical. And if you do that, and so you put in place the right training, which is vetted by the employee resource groups, then you do start to reap dividends because you have happier, more productive people who are delivering value.
And again, I hope that doesn’t sound too mercenary, because this is about human beings, but really, as an organization, you want everybody to be in the best environment so they can deliver. And that is a win for everyone. I’m in a happy corporate culture where I can bring my whole self to work and I will be treated equally and fairly.
And I will be able to deliver and that will drive the business. And I think conversely, a lot of brands, a lot of businesses, a lot of consumers will actively not want to join companies. They will not want to consume the brands, the products, the services that they are responsible for if they are not representative of people with disabilities.
So it is a business imperative. We see that if people get it right, then the retention is right. And it’s a massive growth driver. I absolutely agree. I think that purposeful consumerism is just as important as purposeful leadership, isn’t it? More and more as consumers, we are looking for purpose from the companies that we choose to spend our cash.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. How easy does it translate into smaller businesses? I’m thinking about the North of England in particular, a lot of our economy is made up of small, medium sized enterprises. Yeah. So all of this learning that you’re getting in this sort of systemic energy that’s coming into this agenda, how easily does it translate into those smaller, medium sized enterprises?
So I think the short and hopefully simple answer is that it should and does translate very well because I think, and I actually, I’ll take a little step back to say that, whilst we work exclusively currently with large global organizations, All the material and all the policies , the initiatives we put out there are white papers, we’ve done a Self-ID resource guide, we’re currently working on a Self-ID playbook with some case studies.
We’re doing a white paper around inclusive leadership. We’ve got a whole host of stuff that we are doing. Everything that we do is then an open source. So whilst we work exclusively with larger global organizations, it is there for everybody to use. And I suppose some things do cost money and there is a level of investment.
So perhaps if you are a, if you are an SME and you don’t have the budgets, perhaps of an Apple or a Microsoft, then potentially this can be some, let’s say practical and financial blockers, depending on the makeup of the organization. But in terms of the approach, in terms of the. Training, in terms of the the key tenants to create an inclusive workplace, whether or not you are a, 100, 000 strong global enterprise, or whether or not you are a 10 person strong.
Small startup or business, , the practices the human approach the conversations really, I hope this doesn’t sound too simple, but I think for an employee coming in, if there is the right cultures to say, this is me, okay. The, and this is what I need to do to deliver for you.
And that, that really, no one should feel embarrassed to be asking for stuff. No one should feel marginalized or less than or awkward or tricky or difficult. So creating the right cultural environment and best practice, where really it’s just a simple human conversation. I’m joining the organization.
I want to do my best work. Can we have a conversation around this or an employer, small SME? Or a bigger organization saying, welcome, what can we do for you? What are the conditions? What are the adjustments? What are the accommodations we can put in place? So really almost everything is translatable.
As I said, the only slight caveat is certain training schemes, certain initiatives some of the workplace accessibility to the programs. Can require a level of investment. So that could be the only blocker, but the ethos, the thinking, the sort of the human approach, the questioning around it is totally translatable and applicable irrespective of the size of an organization.
And of course, disability is, not the only protected characteristic. You mentioned earlier, this principle of intersectionality, and I’m going to leave it to you to explain to our listeners exactly what that is and how that factors into the work that you’re doing. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So in, in terms of intersectionality , you must think about how disability entwines with race, with gender with sexuality. It isn’t about siloing off different groups with protected characteristics because to put it bluntly, as I said, disability does not discriminate. And again, it goes back to the fact that anyone at any time can become disabled.
So really it is, and again, we talk to a lot of our companies when we talk, I was talking before about the inclusive representation when a brand is looking at doing some advertising. You’ve got to look across the glorious gamut of humanity and looking at really nuanced, rich, engaging portrayals of humans in all their gloriousness.
We talk about, pushing beyond a narrow and perhaps purely visible conception and portrayal of disability. I suppose bluntly, don’t just put. Don’t just share a white person in a wheelchair. And I hope it’s okay me being so direct in that.
Absolutely. Yeah. But just to give an example, you must also think, and this is around the authentic representation as well as intersectionality, portrayal and representation is around the full range of physical sensory learning, cognitive and sort of mental health conditions.
So I think there is a nuanced portrayal of disability, but also through the intersectionality and intertwining with, as I said, sexuality race and gender. That’s really important. And you absolutely nailed that with the Malteser ad, didn’t you? That nuanced portrayal of intersectionality.
And I think you mentioned it earlier, the fact that disabled people talk about Sex, they talk about their personal lives, they talk about their work challenges, their relationships, same as everybody else. Particularly in the United Kingdom, there’s a real reticence to acknowledge that in our mainstream media, although I think it’s getting a little bit better.
I think it is getting better, I find it really heartening. That. And again, I’ll go back to our dear friends at Channel four. You look at , a lot of the content, a lot of the programming for Channel four. A first step, which is really important is to ensure that the presenters that they have of, thinking with the Paralympics, it’s very pertinent.
But actually , you look at some of the, comedians that they have on various shows. What was I watching the other day? Eight out of ten cats does countdown. A brilliant comedian who’s featured a lot is Rosie Jones, who has cerebral palsy. Now that, she is there as a mainstream comedian.
She is there because she is a funny human. Yes, so that, that is really important. And that just, I was struggling with the right language, but I suppose it’s really, it’s just that universal approach and just normalizing it, because I think very often when we see representation of people with disabilities in a very focused portrayal, very often within entertainment or, sort of drama, you look at tropes.
It’s either a sort of almost dehumanizing trope of, dehumanizing pitiable victim. So the person with the disability is the person for whom we should feel sad and is to be pitied. Or on the other hand they are, the other extreme and the other trope is an inspirational superhero.
There’s a brilliant disability activist, Stella Young, who is a wheelchair user and she says, I am not your inspiration porn. We have to get away from , those as I say, very sort of extreme portrayals of the pitiable victim or the inspirational superhuman and just realize that disabled people are people.
For sure. I’ve got a friend with a disability and people stop regularly in the street to congratulate him on Just being outside as if wow. Yeah. Yeah. It’s tough. That’s, sadly I hear anecdotes like that , all too often. And it’s hard because I think the reality is I would like to think as the eternal optimist that those people who say that, I would like to think that it isn’t with malice.
It’s just lack of, it’s lack of understanding and lack of education. And I think the more that mainstream media, the more that, as I say, entertainment programs, just everything that we see and consume is just authentically representative. Then it doesn’t become, I give an example of my daughter, when my daughter was at primary school, a primary school in Primrose Hill, I was living in London and the school she was at, it was a state school, but it had a really progressive focus on autistic children. And her best friend and we’ve moved away, but they’re still in touch, is a young boy, an Albanian boy called Ort, who is high functioning autistic.
Isabella, my daughter didn’t know him didn’t refer to him as autistic. He was ought, who was funny and brilliant. And at age five could not only identify every single world flag, but he could describe them. He could articulate them. He could say flag X from country Y is got three green stripes and such and such.
There, there was no, he was just her friend. He is just her friend. Now, obviously as she’s got older and she understands, and I have an autistic niece. So it’s good that those conversations are happening, but never in a million years would have she seen someone in a wheelchair or someone and said congratulations, isn’t it good that you’ve made it outside?
And it’s only sadly, as we get older and that we do that. So I think the more that we can normalize and see those mainstream intersectional portrayals of people with disability. The sooner, someone like your friend isn’t going to be put in that deeply uncomfortable, I’m sure, but sadly not uncommon position when effectively they’re being spoken to in a way that is, at best patronizing at worst, deeply offensive, even if that weren’t the intent.
And how easy is it for employers to create strategies that can utilize and support the experience of intersectionality within their businesses? Because it is a complicated business, isn’t it? And, I think many EDI strategies have certainly been accused of being tick box, but to tackle something as complex as this, that’s never going to cut the mustard.
Yeah, so in the spirit of honesty, I’m going to say I honestly don’t know right now. I have a personal perspective on it, but we are not yet, I think as a sort of a global society, advanced enough. To be able to be specifically in terms of workforce representation, be thinking about intersectionality , I think we need to look first and foremost at the needs of the disabled community, which by definition will be intersectional.
I think what is important and your point about a tick box is within the world of DE& I and budgets. I would like to be in a place where. We’re not talking about an ERG for African Americans or an ERG for the LGBTQ I think when you look at the world of disability, and within that, one would hope within the workforce that the representation of that ERG is there, would be intersectional. So therefore it doesn’t have to be a specific topic or an element that we lean into if that makes sense. It is just something that is considered and is representative because that employee resource group will be intersectional because as I said when you look at statistics of people with disabilities you were specifically I was looking at some US data in particular.
The African American community has a higher percentage of people with disability within it. And that can often be through economic situations, through poverty. But I think the reality is, we have a lot of conversations around intersectionality, around representation. So the communications that we are controlling so that we are normalizing and mainstreaming the portrayal of people with disabilities.
And again, going back to my point about entertainment, but I think within a company, I don’t think it is right at the moment. To have a sort of a separate conversation around that intersectionality. If that makes sense, I think it is important to bring in the conversations around accessibility and inclusion for people across all ability needs.
And by definition, if you are addressing the needs, you will be having the conversations around intersectionality. I hope that makes sense. I hope that’s not too complicated. And you mentioned it earlier that we have seen a bit of a backlash, haven’t we, against diversity, equity and inclusion lead roles, particularly in the United Kingdom, and this real sort of backlash against what some people would call woguism and others would just see as humanity.
Do we think , that we’re through that? Is that still something that’s happening? Are we coming out the other side of that? I honestly think it’s still happening. I would say it is significantly worse or certainly more visible right now in the U. S., I think, in the run up to the election.
I was reading only today that both John Deere, the agricultural manufacturing company, and Harley Davidson are no longer advocating for DE& I, they’re deprioritizing all their roles because of the backlash that they’ve got and the boycotting of their products and services. Forgive me, I don’t want to give him airtime.
I think the guy’s name is Bobby Starbuck, who is a proponent of this anti woke movement and the woke generation. And I, as I said, I don’t want to get too political, but. The hideous mild diatribe that he is peddling at the moment is really worrying because what he’s doing is he’s targeting businesses and they’re thinking about their bottom line.
They’re thinking about who are buying our products and services. And if they’re listening to people like this, we will be boycotted. So it is a worrying trend and I don’t think we are through it. I think we need to be mindful of it. I’m confident that there are enough of . The good guys are around and we just need to keep fighting the good fight, but there is no doubt that the headwinds in America are worrying and inevitably that can have a trickle down effect, certainly from a UK perspective.
So it it is really, it is absolutely a worry for me. And I think it is having an effect, if we just think about the civil unrest that we’ve seen in the United Kingdom I have a view that part of that is about just the fact that we’ve given far too much air time to this agenda, that being woke is somehow a bad thing to be.
Yeah I 100 percent agree. And it’s silly, isn’t it? What is, if you boil it down, I don’t know the genesis of how woke and wokeism came about, but really, and I don’t want to oversimplify it. When you strip it down, all we’re really saying, all these conversations are just saying, I use this phrase a lot of just taking a human first approach, treating everybody fairly, irrespective of sexual orientation ability, gender.
It, again, this is the worry when you start to talk about different silos that gives people the opportunity to hone in on something and say, this is different to me and therefore I feel threatened. I’m going to push back on it. But really the start point of. Not being woke, but just being a decent human is going, how do we make sure that everybody has a fair chance?
How do we make sure that everybody is treated equally? And I think the problem is that, you’re right. There are these stories, these sound bites that get out there. There is the airtime. And as you say, the horrendous stuff that we’ve seen recently in the UK. I, it is because it’s been picked up and it has given too much airtime.
And I know that’s a very complicated kind of subject, but that is certainly a really strong contributory factor without a doubt. Hopefully we’re going to get some big air time on your summit that you’ve got coming up. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? Alison, you’re such a pro.
That was a lovely, slick segue and I’m very grateful. Thank you. I’m very comfortable and happy talking about this. So thank you. So our summit, the world’s first accountability summit, we are calling it SYNC25 with a Y pertaining to Synchronised Collective Action that I was talking about the way we work with all our companies.
So this is a two day accountability summit, which we are hosting on the 3rd of December. So the 3rd of December, A very important date. It’s International Day of Persons with Disability. 3rd of December is day one of the summit and then 4th of December is day two. World’s First Accountability Summit.
And this will take place in Tokyo 2025, if I didn’t say that. 3rd of December, 2025 in Tokyo. And we are delighted. that we have the support and we are running this and co hosting it along with Nikkei, Asia Pacific’s largest media organization and also a huge experience in event logistics.
So we have really the best of the best on the ground in Tokyo to help us organize and promote our summit. And also the Nippon Foundation, I referenced them earlier, They were our original funders and, the Valuable 500 would not exist without the support of the Nippon Foundation.
And they now continue to be our strategic advisors. So this is really, I would honestly call it, it’s our coming together moment. It’s our moment of accountability where we come together with our 500 plus companies and our disability community. And we report back on the collective progress that we are making against those three Synchronised Collective Actions, those areas around inclusive leadership, inclusive reporting, and inclusive representation. So day two is that coming together and reporting back, spotlighting some case studies the success stories, sharing as well any of the challenges that we’ve had along the way.
I think it’s really important to point out that when we talk about accountability, I’m a big fan of taking account and the word accountability. It polarizes opinions. Sometimes people, think goodness me, is it going to be a league table? Will I be singled out as not doing as well?
Again, in the spirit of our community and collaboration and rising tide and working together, the data that we share back will be collective, consolidated, aggregated data to see how collectively we are moving as one is Will we, of course, spotlight Some companies that are doing things particularly brilliantly in the spirit of other companies being able to share and learn and progress and evolve on their own disability inclusion journey.
Absolutely. We see accountability and it’s most necessary and most positive sense of taking ownership. And understanding where we are because, that focus will be around, as well as the stories, it will be around data. Because if you don’t measure something and you don’t get those data points, you can’t manage it and you can’t improve and you can’t grow.
So look, I’m really keen for the figures to be as healthy and high as possible, but ultimately , I say it doesn’t matter. Whatever data we get back, that will still be really meaningful because that will understand what still needs to be done. And how we can work together.
So day one is reporting back against those three areas showing the progress and day two, as exciting is about setting out our store for the future, because we are seeing SYNC25, the name of our accountability summit. That marks the start of a decade of action and accountability. Our ambition is to run a SYNC25 summit every two years.
And we will on day two. So on the 4th of December, 2025, we will be announcing what our next three Synchronised Collective Actions are. And our asks of our companies that we will work together on over those next two years to take us and we will also be announcing the next host country as well.
So that’s really exciting. A huge, big, I can’t lie, slightly scary and daunting ambition and mission, all good and important things are never easy. And if I didn’t have butterflies in my stomach, then I wouldn’t be doing the right thing. So yeah SYNC25, our accountability summit in in December, 2025 in Tokyo.
I’m sure that the Accountability Summit’s going to be a really huge success, and I suppose if our listeners wanted to find out more, if they wanted to get involved, if they just wanted to hear about the outcome of that, how do they connect with this event? So I think I think the simplest thing is if you go onto our website.
Which is the Valuable 500, 500 as a number written out dot com. You will see there will all contact details, so you can get involved with us. There are contact details to connect. We’ve got lots of ideas about what we do on our road to Tokyo.
We’re in conversations as to whether or not we might do a sort of a making of through Nikkei as well, because they’re a lot, Asia Pacific’s largest media owner. It will be recorded. There’ll be elements which are broadcast as well. So it is in the first instance, a closed event.
For our companies and for our directory members, but there will certainly be content that we will be capturing and that we’ll be sharing in the spirit of it being available. And yeah, it is really exciting. We have the support of the Japanese government, which is amazing for us. The support of the governor of Tokyo as well.
And I wish I could share more with you, Alison, but I’m going to be uncharacteristically tight lipped and professional and not share with you some of the other names and conversations that we’re having with some of our keynote speakers, everyone passionately connected. With the world of disability inclusion,
We want to do this and we need to do this properly. We need to do it at scale. And again, it gives me, in spite of what we were saying before about anti woke, ism and some of the negative headwinds and some of the challenges. It is on a daily basis, so heartening to understand that people we’re talking to within our companies, but the wider sphere are passionate advocates of the work that we’re doing.
So some of the conversations that we’re having with potential keynote speakers it’s really exciting because the door really feels open because there is genuinely a lot of passion and a lot of commitment. And of course, it’s going to also help set your strategy for the next 10 years, which is going to be really important.
But whilst we’re waiting for that and as we wrap up, what specific action would you like to see in the meantime, whether at a business level or a personal level that would help shift perceptions and attitudes towards inclusion ? So I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to do it on a personal level for individuals, but actually that, that will, that can ripple out into a more sort of corporate world. I think very often people are too scared to ask questions and too scared to start a conversation around disability inclusion. I know myself I still, I’ve been enrolled for over a year now. But sometimes I, I worry about language.
There’s a lot of debate, a lot of controversy about the right language when you’re talking around disability inclusion. Anxiety, understandably so around ableist language that there can very often be a whole lot of fear. And sometimes people think, goodness me, rather than perhaps run the risk of getting it wrong, perhaps it is better to just not have the conversation, not to ask the question, not to start.
By start either to start , on a personal journey to understand disability inclusion and understand what you could do as an individual to, to help. And that can really just be something as personal as, let’s say for example, you shared about the anecdote about your friend who’s a wheelchair user.
Again, I understand it can be very uncomfortable, but if there ever were a moment, I think, the emphasis should not to be clear beyond the person with a disability, but perhaps if the person who’d given that potentially, let’s say, intentioned comment, if they were with someone else, could that person have said, If they picked up on it, Oh, was that the right thing to say?
I hope you understand the intent. What could I have done differently? What could I have done better? Sometimes there are moments if we are attuned to just how do I learn? How do I understand what is the right way to approach things? How can I help? Not in a patronizing way, but what can I personally do?
So I think, my, my sort of condensed takeaway would be The only mistake is not trying and not starting and ask the right questions. Take the time to educate yourself and learn and understand that one approach for one person isn’t going to be right for everyone. So be prepared that sometimes you may get it wrong.
But just make sure that you understand why you got it wrong and you learn from it. But I think both for our companies as they start upon their disability inclusion journey and for individuals for listeners for members of the public the only mistake you can make is not starting that conversation not asking that question not understanding what you can do to make the life of someone with a disability just that bit better, Katy Talikowska, CEO of Valuable 500.
Thank you for your time today. It’s been my absolute privilege to talk to you about this very important subject of disability exclusion, or rather, disability inclusion. Thank you so much, Alison!
