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Race Champion aims to lead by example
Friday October 16th 2009. Posted: 08:00
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Ray Leclercq - privileged to have experienced different cultures
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Growing up in South Africa and working in a number of different countries has given BT’s Race Champion Ray Leclercq what he calls a “heightened awareness” of race issues and the desire to positively contribute by working to help overcome them.
Ray - who moved to BT Global Services as chief financial officer from Openreach last December- says he often wonders about “missed opportunities” when he remembers the homeland of his youth. “The thing that has always fascinated me about South Africa is that if there had been a more equitable approach - and history could be rewritten - how much more successful would the country have been?” “If it had fully leveraged the skills and talents of all its people, instead of limiting itself to a minority, what greatness could it have achieved, and how many of the social and economic challenges faced today could have been avoided?” Ray says his role as Race Champion comes down to a simple logic. “How can you be the best business that you can be and align to your personal and moral values? Stark contrast “I simply don’t understand how any company - or country, or organisation - would consciously constrain itself by excluding a whole group of people, whether by race, gender, or any other factor. Growing up as a young child in South Africa in the 1970s, and attending boarding school in England from the age of eight, Ray says he was presented with a stark contrast between the two countries and the inequalities that existed in South Africa. Having also lived in Morocco and Iran - where he and his family were airlifted out in 1979 when the revolution started - Ray says he feels privileged to have experienced different cultures and approaches to cultural integration. “It’s given me a much broader picture and made me realise diversity is a complex issue that means different things to people around the world.” Balancing act Diversity has been on Ray’s agenda for many years. Until he moved to BT Global Services, he was Diversity Champion for Openreach - and before joining BT in 2006, he undertook the same role at One.Tel. “Becoming CFO for BT Global Services in December and taking on the role as Group Race Champion has been a bit of a balancing act,” he said. “Since May, I’ve done a lot of listening in order to understand the issues both internally and externally.” Last month, Ray became a member of the Race for Opportunity (RfO) board, an independent organisation committed to improving employment opportunities for ethnic minorities across the UK. Board members include leaders from many of the nation’s biggest businesses. “Hearing people talk about their key focuses and challenges, I’ve realised there are a number of core themes,” he said. “One of these is around access to opportunities. It’s one thing to create opportunities but another to make it easy for people to take them up. Nurturing talent “Personally, I’ve realised that while I can’t force people to change, I can encourage them to change by being a visible role model and leading by example. “It’s about nurturing talent across all ethnic groups - and as a company we’ve already done some great work. I’m proud that BT was recently named the most race-friendly organisation to work for by the RfO’s annual benchmark survey.” But there’s more BT can do, Ray said. “We need to ask, what’s the next step? For example, how do we encourage other organisations to change more rapidly? We are a significant purchaser of products and services and have an ability to reinforce the messages of fairness and equality through our procurement process. “The diversity agenda is an area where a lot of people around the company have put in a great deal of hard work - and on their behalf I’m proud to say we’ve been shortlisted in the Supplier Chain Best Practice category of the RfO Awards which are being presented on Wednesday (21 October).”
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Last updated:
10:55