If you were watching the RBS 6 Nations rugby final in March, you may have noticed that it was Chris Sullivan, CEO of RBS Corporate Banking, who presented the medals to the winning Welsh team. But as well as supporting rugby he's also become known for being one of the biggest supporters of gender diversity in the workplace.
In fact, last year, Chris won the Champion of Diversity accolade in last year's European Diversity Awards. As such, he is taking apart the stereotype of the typical career banker and, in this male-dominated world, his proactive approach is refreshing.
Thankfully, most large organisations have now cottoned on to the idea that diversity brings commercial value, but Chris is still keen to ensure that RBS leads by example. His focus in 2012 is achieving diversity through collaboration. This explains why he didn't stop at winning the award, but chose to work in partnership with Google as joint headline sponsors of the event the following year.
In 2012, RBS is looking to collaborate with hundreds of organisations to increase diversity in business. This includes our suppliers, our competitors and our clients, via our Women in Business customer proposition. We want to help all businesses in their search for diversity of race, age and gender among other categories. Essentially, it's about access to diversity of thought, and collaboration is a critical way of achieving this.
Importantly, collaboration means that we haven't stopped at the borders of the UK. Chris has recently agreed to chair the Global Banking Alliance for Women, who are committed to the growth of women's wealth creation worldwide. Its members share best practices to achieve this goal, a goal that Chris personally believes in: "Any institution that can harness the true potential of women within their organisation and their customer base will achieve massive sustainable success".
Internally, we're doing a number of things to improve our own diversity. It's important after all that we practice what we preach. Our Focused Women's Network, of which Chris is the executive sponsor, has nearly 6,000 members and operates in more than 30 countries. Similarly, our Rainbow Network is one of the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender networks in the banking sector. Both networks have been established by employees for employees, in order to provide a worldwide support forum based on working together.
Despite the thriving success and importance of these networks, our remit to collaborate indicates that the solution doesn't lie with minority groups campaigning for change on their own. Chris wholeheartedly advocates this, which could explain why the percentage growth of men joining our Focused Women's Network currently exceeds that of women. He comments: "Working together to achieve diversity is an economic lever within organisations. It's one of the biggest levers you can pull and it's as simple as that really".
Chris speaks passionately about that fact that "everyone is responsible" for changing the status quo and his plans to push collaboration are helping RBS embed this across the business and beyond.
Content produced and controlled by Square Peg Media, supporter of the Diversity hub.
