In this exclusive interview, Valuable 500 Founder Caroline Casey spoke to Steve Ingham, CEO of PageGroup, about the importance of C-Suite representation and his own experience of living with a disability.
Steve Ingham has been CEO of PageGroup since 2006, but with the company since 1987, helping grow it from a few hundred people to a FTSE 250 group that employs more than 6,500 people across 37 countries. He is also the only CEO in the FTSE 250 who has disclosed lived experience of disability, following a skiing accident in March 2019. Ingham was skiing in the Alps on his own for the first time when he lost control on a slope and fell into a ravine.
“I instantly knew I was paralysed — because the only bit of me that wasn’t cold were my legs.” Ingham had suffered a T10/T11 fracture, right through the spinal cord. “So I can’t feel anything below my belly button, put bluntly, so that people can imagine.”
From there, Ingham had to start the process of learning to live life with a disability – a steep learning curve — “which was tough” — four and a half months in hospital, “trying to run a company at the same time”.
He almost immediately went back to running PageGroup from his UK hospital bed. When he was “pain-free” enough to put a shirt on, he used an iPad to record a video message explaining the situation. It was shared with all staff. “Then I got about 7,000 emails, WhatsApp messages, parcels, food parcels from all over the world. I mean, it was great.”
The accident occurred in March 2019. He was back in the office by June. Returning helped reassure people that he was still up to the job, but he says that there were still battles with people’s perceptions over disability. One former colleague even warned that he would not be taken seriously any more. A reaction he feels was completely unjustified.
I realised that far from lowering my respect in the business, it was actually raising it.
He is now seeking to champion changes in the UK workplace to help others with disabilities. PageGroup has Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that look at how employees feel included at work, including parents, and individuals who are LGBT+, from an ethnic minority and people with disabilities. Managers are required to carry out diversity and inclusion training, which covers unconscious bias and how to recruit inclusively.
This has turned into a more formal campaign. Ingham supported a letter written by Lord Shinkwin, a Conservative life peer, urging the prime minister to make changes to improve employment opportunities for disabled people — including mandatory workplace reporting.
When asked what he would say to anyone hiding a disability at work, Ingham says simply “don’t”. Adding that “one of the most important qualities about leadership, I believe, is authenticity. And how can you be authentic if you’re pretending to be something you’re not?”
In fact, he believes experiencing disability has made him a stronger leader. “Business is about going through challenges isn’t it? And I know a bit about challenges – a bit more than I did before two years ago.”
Let us sort of try to unlock this theory that it’s complicated, it’s expensive, that we are weaker, that we can’t do as much for you – we can probably prove otherwise! Overcoming challenges is what a business is about. I honestly believe that those with a disability overcome probably more challenges in a day than most able-bodied people have to go through in their lifetime!
This is particularly relevant he says, for young people entering the workforce, as he knows from his experience managing a recruitment firm. “There is a war for talent out there, it is extremely difficult to find good candidates for all the roles that businesses want to recruit for. And yet there is this pool of 20 per cent of the population that are absolutely qualified and frankly have the personal skills to add more value to their business than maybe some of the able-bodied candidates.”
But he believes businesses need to look more closely at the talent pipeline, in order to encourage more young people with disabilities into the workforce. “We’ve got to really look at the long game here and how we can make them feel as wanted, as needed as anybody else.”
So what does Ingham believe stands in the way of business leaders putting disability inclusion on the agenda? He points to fear, lack of prioritisation and ultimately misconception as the main barriers. “Disability is the bit on the end where people go ‘we must look after them, they need our help’. Well we don’t actually, the majority of the sector who are disabled don’t need to be cared for, we don’t need pity or sympathy or anything else actually. We just need to be respected like an able-bodied person and given an opportunity.”
And yes, it’s complicated – “we’re not all the same, we’re not all in wheelchairs”. So what is the answer? “Just talk about it. If you need to, talk to people like me.”
Because ultimately, he says “overcoming challenges is what a business is all about. I honestly believe people with disabilities overcome probably more challenges in a day than most able-bodied people have to go through in their lifetime”.
In conversation with Steve Ingham.
You can find out more about what Steve Ingham and PageGroup have committed to as part of The Valuable 500 campaign on PageGroup’s commitment page.
