No FTSE 100 company is led by an ethnically diverse woman, according to the analysis published with the 2026 Empower Role Model Lists. The finding sits awkwardly beside real progress in Britain’s boardrooms, where ethnic minority directors now hold a fifth of seats across the index. For chairs and investors, who reaches the top job has become a question of succession planning as much as principle.
The lists, compiled by the inclusion consultancy INvolve with support from YouTube, recognise executives, future leaders and advocates who remove barriers for people of colour at work. Read closely, they double as a shortlist of leaders from which Britain’s next chief executives could plausibly be drawn. The contrast between that ready talent and the current leadership gap is the story that matters here.
FTSE 100 leadership: boardrooms have moved, the top job has not
The Parker Review has documented steady gains in Britain’s listed companies. Its latest findings record 98 FTSE 100 companies with at least one ethnic minority director, while ethnic minority leaders hold 20% of all FTSE 100 directorships. Representation at board level, in other words, is now a settled feature of the modern British company.
Those gains thin out sharply at executive level. Some 14 FTSE 100 chief executives come from ethnic minority backgrounds, and none of them is a woman. Black leaders in particular remain underrepresented in the most senior positions, a signal that progress is not flowing evenly through every community.
The pattern repeats overseas
American business shows the same shape. Nine of the United States’ 500 largest companies are led by ethnically diverse women, a share of 1.8%. Women hold a record number of chief executive positions overall, which makes the absence at the intersection of ethnicity and gender all the more striking.
Why the gap matters commercially
Chief executives set strategy, shape culture, steer investment and decide who is regarded as future leadership material. An organisation that draws its leaders from a narrow group is choosing from a smaller pool of talent. Research also puts the contribution of ethnic minority-led businesses to the UK economy at up to £74 billion each year, a sum that underlines the cost of wasted potential.
The leaders changing the picture
The Empower Role Model Lists exist to make visible the executives who use their influence to open doors. The executive list alone recognises 100 senior leaders, with parallel lists of future leaders and workplace advocates named alongside them. Together they map a pipeline that already sits inside Britain’s largest employers.
Names boards should know
Ije Nwokorie, chief executive of Dr. Martens, and Aki Hussain, group chief executive of the insurer Hiscox, both feature among the executives recognised. Their presence signals that the lists track leaders already holding operational command of sizeable businesses.
Justin Onuekwusi, chief investment officer at St. James’s Place, and Manashi Guha, chief growth officer at L’Oreal UK and Ireland, add asset management and consumer brands to the range. Gayathri Kamalanathan, a partner at Slaughter and May, shows the lists’ reach into the professions as well.
The future leader and advocate categories broaden the field further, pairing rising managers with the senior figures who sponsor them. Several honoured executives, from retail to insurance, already occupy the operational roles from which chief executives are typically appointed.
Turning recognition into succession
Suki Sandhu, founder and chief executive of INvolve, argues that visible role models change what people believe is within reach. ‘Ethnically diverse women face barriers linked to both race and gender, and the evidence shows that too many companies are still failing to remove those barriers at the most senior level,’ she says. Her advice to business is to keep investing in fair progression and visible leadership at the very top.
Progression, not just representation
Boards that track appointments alone will miss where careers actually stall. Employers are urged to follow who is promoted into operational and profit-and-loss roles, the posts from which chief executives traditionally emerge. Succession planning works only when ethnically diverse women are considered for those positions, and not only for board seats.
Sponsorship as well as mentoring
Mentoring supports individuals, but sponsorship changes careers, because senior leaders who actively advocate for talent move it decisively. Employers are also encouraged to monitor recruitment, promotion, pay and retention by both ethnicity and gender, and to act where the data exposes barriers. Wider access to stretch assignments, international postings and strategic projects completes the practical agenda.
From lists to appointments
Britain’s largest companies have shown they can change the composition of their boardrooms when they measure and disclose the results. The same discipline, applied to executive pipelines, would turn recognition into appointments. The names are already on this year’s lists, and the next move belongs to Britain’s boards.