June Sarpong OBE
Inclusion has moved from a statement of values to a contested operating question. Workforces, audiences and customer bases are more diverse than the organisations serving them, and leaders are under pressure from boards, regulators and employees to show that inclusion produces better decisions, not slogans. The challenge is making that case in commercial language, then running it as a programme rather than a campaign.
June Sarpong is a broadcaster, author and former BBC Director of Creative Diversity who helps organisations turn inclusion into a measurable operating commitment rather than a brand statement.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with June Sarpong
- She has run inclusion at scale inside one of the world’s largest media organisations. As the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity, she sat on the Executive Committee and oversaw a £100m commissioning commitment, which gives boards a credible peer voice rather than an outside consultant.
- Her three HarperCollins books (Diversify, The Power of Women, The Power of Privilege) build an economic argument for inclusion, drawing on Nuffield College, Oxford research that put the cost of UK discrimination at £127bn a year. Buyers get a speaker who can frame the case in commercial terms.
- Through Diversify International, she has worked with Burberry, Barclays, Nike, Google, Unilever, EY and the NHS, so the room can ask practical questions about what works in regulated, consumer-facing and public-sector contexts.
- She moves naturally between keynote and host or moderator, which makes her usable across formats: a leadership offsite opener, an internal town hall, an awards stage, or a chaired board conversation on diversity.
Biography highlights
- First Director of Creative Diversity at the BBC and first Black woman on the BBC Executive Committee.
- Oversaw a £100m commitment to diverse and inclusive content commissioning at the BBC.
- Author of three HarperCollins titles on inclusion: Diversify, The Power of Women, The Power of Privilege.
- Founder of Diversify International, with corporate clients including Burberry, Barclays, Google, Nike, Unilever, EY, Facebook and the NHS.
- MBE (2007) and OBE (2020) for services to broadcasting and to broadcasting respectively.
- Non-Executive Trustee of Tate, appointed by the Prime Minister.
Biography
Inclusion is now a board-level question because the audiences, workforces and customer bases of most large organisations have changed faster than the people running them. June Sarpong’s work sits exactly in that gap. She argues, in commercial language, that closing it is an operating decision, not a values statement.
She made that case from inside one of the world’s most scrutinised institutions. As the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity, she sat on the Executive Committee and oversaw a £100m commissioning commitment to diverse and inclusive content. It was the first time a UK public broadcaster of that scale tied inclusion to a budget line and reported against it.
The argument is also published. Her three HarperCollins books, Diversify, The Power of Women and The Power of Privilege, draw on Nuffield College, Oxford research that put the annual cost of discrimination in the UK at £127bn. The books are used as a frame in her keynote work, which is how she became useful to companies trying to move beyond statements: Burberry, Barclays, Google, Nike, Unilever, EY and the NHS have all engaged Diversify International, the consultancy she founded after leaving the BBC.
Her career began in broadcasting, and that range still matters commercially. She presented Channel 4’s T4 for nine years, interviewed Tony Blair for the strand, and is a regular panel and broadcast voice. The same craft that lets her host a leadership offsite or chair a board conversation also lets her bring difficult inclusion content into a room without it landing as a lecture. She is a Trustee of Tate, appointed by the Prime Minister, and holds an OBE for services to broadcasting.
Key speaking topics
- Inclusion as an operating commitment
- Diverse audiences and consumer reach
- Workforce composition and talent
- The economic case for inclusion
- Allyship and privilege
- Women in leadership
- Culture change inside large organisations
Ideal for
- CHROs, Chief People Officers and DEI leads under pressure to show measurable inclusion outcomes
- Boards and executive committees revisiting inclusion strategy after the post-2020 reset
- Marketing and brand leaders rethinking how products and content connect with diverse audiences
- Leadership offsites, internal town halls and conferences that need a credible host as well as a speaker
Audience outcomes
- A clearer picture of what inclusion looks like as a budget and operating decision, drawn from a real public-sector example
- The commercial argument for inclusion in language a CFO or board chair will accept
- A practical reading of what worked and what failed across consumer, financial and public-sector deployments
- A sharper view of the difference between inclusion programmes and inclusion communications