Class of 2023: the new chief executives

Before we get to what we found, let’s consider why someone might expect the results to have shifted since 2018. In 2020, Black Lives Matter was reinvigorated, and organisations around the world reckoned with themselves, analysing their own approaches to diversity and inclusion. The housing sector was no exception.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, social landlords put out statements, making commitments to fight racism, and promised a range of specific actions, from publishing data on the ethnicity pay gap to changing recruitment. Inside Housing set up an editorial panel of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people working in housing, to advise and shape our coverage.

In 2021, Inside Housing surveyed housing associations because we wanted to find out what specific changes they were making to address race inequity.

Twenty-three responded, which detailed plans to set up formal listening processes, with the aim being to find out more about what it was like for Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff to work for them. A handful promised to publish their ethnicity pay gap – showing if there was a difference in what Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff members were paid, compared to white staff members. Housing 21 introduced a target of building at least 10% of new homes in areas where the Black, Asian and ethnic minority population was at least 30%.

These changes might appear to be encouraging, but what was happening to the sector’s top jobs? While many housing providers have diverse staff at more junior levels, it has long been a criticism of the sector that it becomes whiter, and overall less diverse, the higher up you look on organisational charts.

“I’ve seen well-intentioned diversity programmes that are built on a deficit view, which assumes that the institutions themselves are blameless and that marginalised groups bear individual responsibility for failing to progress into senior roles”

Between 2020 and 2023, the biggest associations appointed 31 new chief executives (we have excluded from our research mergers that ended with one of the former chief executives leading the new organisation).

Encouragingly, nearly half of these chief executive positions were given to women. Out of 31 appointments, 14 were women, putting the percentage of new female chief executives at 45%. Only one in three of the exiting chief executives were women.

Along racial lines, the results are more dire. Of the 31 appointments, a mere two were from an ethnic minority background.

In April 2023, First Choice Homes Oldham appointed Dr Delroy Beverley. Dr Beverley’s previous roles include managing director for the NHS, running a commercial subsidiary, executive director of Nottingham City Homes and chief operating officer at Greenwich Council.

He replaced Donna Cezair, who has gone on to lead Worthing Homes. Ms Cezair is part Trinidadian.

“I’m fortunate to be in a situation where I have ascended to the top of the organisation, but that’s highly unusual. This is something that’s been discussed for decades. I’m a product of the ’60s, this is not new,” Dr Beverley says. “It’s deeper than housing. What needs to be done across societies is a levelling up of the playing field. It’s a societal problem, which also impacts housing.”

“I’ve seen well-intentioned diversity programmes that are built on a deficit view, which assumes that the institutions themselves are blameless and that marginalised groups bear individual responsibility for failing to progress into senior roles. I’ve also been the product of a scheme myself in the ’80s – I was on an executive fast-track leadership programme. It was supposed to be a reoccurring programme, but it ran for three years and stopped,” he says.

Ensuring diverse recruitment should not be a one-off initiative, he says: it needs to be business as usual.

Of the 31 appointments, 6% went to a person of colour. Comparatively, according to the latest available government data, the ethnic minority population for England and Wales is higher. People from Asian ethnic groups make up the second-largest percentage of the population (9.3%), yet no Asian people have been recruited to these housing top jobs since the start of the decade. Black people represent 4.0% of the population, mixed 2.9%, and other ethnic groups 2.1%.

Jaimi Shanahan, director of diversity and inclusion firm Green Park, says: “Sadly this doesn’t come as a surprise to us. Despite commitments from housing associations, there continues to be a lack of representation at senior levels across the sector, which suggests that recruitment practices are not changing.”

Ms Shanahan says that organisations must move from diversity just informing recruitment, to a deeper approach that includes diversity as a strategic priority for the organisation.

“They should be asking themselves what the strategic priorities around diversity are and build from here. This needs to inform a process for recruitment that is intentionally inclusive, removing the barriers that might be deterring individuals who wouldn’t be considered the ‘usual suspects’ from applying,” she says.

Olu Olanrewaju, director at Altair, says the results of Inside Housing’s research reinforce his reasons for co-founding Leadership 2025, a charity that aims to make housing leadership roles more diverse, and provides training to ethnic minority people in the sector.

“There is a long way to go, but many associations are working hard to create lasting change. For example, we have seen successful succession planning at board level, and an increased recognition of the value of diverse leadership that we believe will improve diversity for the long term”

“It is now more of sadness and disappointment because of the history and social purpose of housing associations,” he says. “It also reinforces the point that enough organisations do not yet appreciate the correlation between diverse representation at the top of organisations and the creation of inclusive culture, which is critical to dealing with some of the malaise of the sector when it comes to delivering services that achieve equal outcomes for tenants and employees.”

He calls for housing associations to undertake an “independent review” to “identify why people of colour are not adequately represented in senior positions in their organisations”. This could result in targets to transform how representative boards and executives are, annual reports on progress and external auditing.

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF), says: “It is crucial that diversity is seen at all levels within an organisation.”

She adds that this is why the NHF has a programme of work on diversity, including its equality, diversity and inclusion data tool. The NHF is currently collecting data for its second iteration of this tool.

“There is a long way to go, but many associations are working hard to create lasting change. For example, we have seen successful succession planning at board level, and an increased recognition of the value of diverse leadership that we believe will improve diversity for the long term,” Ms Henderson says.

While our sample of the latest CEO appointments was small, it is reflective of the homogeneity of the sector. When there seemed to be diversity among gender lines, it fails on racial lines. And that’s before we’ve considered other diversity markers: disability, gender identity, sexuality and religion, which may be harder to measure.

Research shows that the UK is only getting more diverse. The sector might want to get on board, rather than burying its head in the sand. People from different backgrounds are not going anywhere.

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