Multi-award winning Barrister and Founder of the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation is continuing to empower future leaders and close the diversity gap. She is also a Lambeth Equality Commissioner and an international public speaker sharing how to close the diversity gap at a faster pace across the world.
Each year, the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation awards some of the best diversity leaders of our next generation with a scholarship to assist with their funding, mentoring and work experience within their chosen sector. The event is called the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Annual Lecture where eleven educational diversity leadership scholarships were awarded to our next generation diversity leaders from a diverse backgrounds. This included categories across media, fashion, engineering, law, finance, business, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) etc.
To date, the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Foundation have helped over 50,000 people and have awarded 40 educational diversity scholarships to date. The foundation’s collaborations and partnerships include The Prince’s Trust, Lambeth Council, The Patchwork Foundation, Cancer Research UK and The Palmer Foundation to help increase diversity in local government, politics and STEAM.
The event, which made UK history in 2016, is the brainchild of the foundation’s founder and CEO Dr Miranda Brawn. Brawn is known as one of the UK’s top diversity, equality and inclusion leaders, helping to close the diversity gap in our workforce and across the globe. She won Woman of the Year at this year’s Women in Finance Awards which is Europe’s largest awards event within the finance industry for her excellent diversity and finance work.
This year’s diversity leadership annual lecture made a powerful case on how to move on from talking about diversity to action by using your most powerful tool – your voice – in order to create true inclusion and belonging in the workplace. The theme was “Use Your Voice for Inclusion and Belonging”. The event was oversubscribed with a packed room full of students and their parents attending from all of the UK including one student who travelled all the way from Wales.
Brawn said: “It was important for us to highlight how inclusion and belonging are key right now at this year’s leading Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Annual Lecture helping to educate our attendees. I had explained in the lecture that “belonging” in particular is when your insights and contributions are valued, you feel a sense of belonging in your gut. A sense of belonging means that people can bring their full selves to work, and not feel like they are a different person there than at home. It is no longer enough to simply include people at the table for diversity. Now in 2019, it is imperative to amplify everyone’s voices, clear barriers, create true fairness while appreciating each other for our unique backgrounds and personalities.
It is also time to talk about accountability, consequences, promotions and retention within the workplace. What is different today is that the attitudes have changed from “let’s ignore it and sweep it under the carpet to let’s do something about it!” It is important to listen to those who are brave enough to speak up about issues. Inclusion is essential for high performance however many organisations only pay it lip service. There are ways that companies can take to improve inclusion, and thus productivity. The great irony of organisational diversity and inclusion initiatives is that the “inclusion” aspect is often “excluded”. This year’s lecture has highlighted that inclusion and belonging make diversity work and should be our next focus to help close the diversity gap. Last year, our theme was “together we can change the world” which is still relevant. However, we have to take it up to the next level now with inclusion and belonging.”
At the fourth Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Annual Lecture event, which took place on 26 October 2019, at the University of Law, Brawn delivered the annual diversity leadership lecture providing ideas on inclusion and belonging.
Brawn said: “Diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having that voice be heard. Embracing inclusion can lead to more employees feeling a sense of belonging which is a key requirement in the workplace today. Our history making diversity leadership lecture has trailblazed forward once again by bringing both parents and next generation students together to help us close the diversity gap at a faster pace. We are also moving the conversation from talking about diversity to acting upon inclusion and belonging. How to use your most powerful tool – your voice – to help create real change at a faster pace. My upcoming book is out within the next year or so and will include this plus much more.”
A short video of the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Annual Lecture 2019 will be available via the You Tube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHG5BBrYbgePYnFYfpQLJNA
If you would like to apply for The Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Scholarship Programme for 2020/21, you can visit www.mbdiversityleadershipfoundation.com for further information and apply in Spring 2020 once the application process has re-opened.
