Black All Year - Building Genuinely Diverse Boards

What happens when a traumatic incident in your youth shapes your entire worldview? Join Steph Edusei in conversation with James Carss, founder and chief executive of Castle Peak Group, as he recounts his poignant journey from his childhood in the predominantly white North East of England to his experiences in London, Hong Kong, and Canada. James opens up about a pivotal moment of racial violence that fuelled his dedication to equality and justice. Discover how his personal trials have translated into a professional mission to create inclusive spaces and promote social justice.

Sharing his experience of building truly inclusive organisations, James emphasizes the necessity of having diverse executive teams and the importance of starting these efforts at the leadership level. He sheds light on the progress in diversity across regulated sectors like financial services while highlighting ongoing challenges in other industries, including charities. Learn about the pitfalls of tokenism and the importance of genuine, strategic approaches to fostering diversity that reflects the community and customer base. James shares invaluable insights into how organizations can move beyond superficial policies to demonstrate real commitment through actions and leadership.

James discusses the pressures faced by minoritised individuals, particularly black women in senior positions, and how structured interviews can help reduce unconscious bias. We explore the value of diverse boards and the significant benefits they bring to organisational success. This episode serves as a powerful reminder of the ongoing relevance of diversity and inclusion, and the profound impact of personal experiences on one’s professional dedication to these crucial issues.

James Carss contact info:
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescarss/

Steph Edusei LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/steph-edusei/
Steph Edusei Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stephedusei/

Original music by Wayne C McDonald, #ActorSlashDJ
www.facebook.com/waynecmcdonald
www.mixcloud.com/waynecmcdonald
...

Chapters

• 0:09 Diversity and Inclusion in Recruitment
• 12:38 Building Inclusive Organizations Through Honest Conversations
• 20:43 Challenges in Hiring for Diversity
• 25:31 Personal Growth and Self-Reflection

Transcript

[Steph Edusei] (0:08 - 1:28)

Hi everyone, this is Black All Year and I'm Steph Edusei and today's guest is James Carss. James is the founder and chief executive of Castle Peak Group, which was founded by James in 2024 as he felt passionately that there was a gap in the market within the northeast for a true executive search offering that was driven and built upon diversity and inclusion. James feels that these are not token or box ticking gestures, but really values that are close to his heart.

James has also an understanding of being a non-executive director, having been a trustee with the Smart Multi-Academy School Trust and is currently a serving NED of the Board of Active Northumberland. In his spare time, along with a very busy family life, James is an acclaimed teacher of Tai Chi Chuan and Chinese martial arts. He has taught seminars and workshops all over the world.

Hi James, welcome to Black All Year. It's really great to have you with us and thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I know you've got a real passion and interest in equality, diversity and inclusion and as you say yourself, that might seem strange for somebody who is a white man.

So tell us a little bit about your background and what's led you to this point.

[James Carss] (1:29 - 4:10)

Absolutely. Well, first of all, Steph, thanks very much for having me on the podcast. Really appreciate the invitation and honoured to be here as well.

Okay, so yes, a question I get asked quite a lot actually from running a diversity and inclusion executive search business and perhaps not always fitting the usual characteristics that you might see in somebody who's doing that and why it's important to me. So my background does lead into so I'm from the North East originally, from Willow Bay, from the coast and I spent all of my time outside from basically going to university. So I went to university at 18 in a small town called Luton in Bredfordshire and then went on to work in London for five years and then moved over to Hong Kong where I stayed for 12 years, then Canada and then when you came back to the UK to Newcastle about seven years ago, so big chunk of time away from the place.

And that really, I guess, also helped to form me as an individual. But going back to my youth, so I at that time, given my age away, you know, the UK was the North East was not the most diverse region. It was very white, working to lower middle class kind of neighbourhoods that I grew up in during that period of time.

And, you know, sort of the instance you have as a youth kind of shape you quite a lot and decisions that you make and also how you become as a person getting older. And I suppose a couple of things happened to me when I was younger that really made quite an impact on me in this direction. First, the first one being I was in quite a traumatic, violent incident, actually, when I was about 10.

And I had a close friend at school at the time who came from, his parents were from Indian background. And we'd gone to the local Thai mouth together. And my mum at the time had dropped us off and agreed a time to come and pick us up from Nepal later on.

And being a very busy working mum with three kids, she was a little bit late. And I can empathise with that now, on the way and coming back. So we were we were stood waiting at this bus stop.

And for her to come, she wasn't terribly late. And well, basically, a group of skinheads came along and beat seven bells out of the two of us. It was a pretty bad incident with police called it at the time, and they did catch them.

And you know, that that was a pretty hard thing to go through. And also and also for my friend as well. And it was an interesting day because that was the first time we had done that and gone to the pool.

And I was what really sticks in my mind as much about that was the moment we went into the swimming baths after we changed and walked through the showers was a growing, growing man, an adult male spitting on my friend.

[Steph Edusei] (4:10 - 4:10)

Wow.

[James Carss] (4:10 - 5:35)

As we were entering the pool. And I'd never seen that or experienced anything like that before. Interestingly, though, the only time I've seen anything like that was four years ago, during the beginning of COVID.

You know, but some very close Hong Kong Chinese friends in Newcastle has been a lot of immigration here recently from from from Hong Kong. And their kids were spat out in McDonald's in 2020. In the beginning of the pandemic, because you know, and it was on, you know, you brought you brought COVID over here.

So you think when you hear the original incident, the world's changed a lot, but actually had it that was a really bad experience. And I guess something that I wouldn't have normally gone through had I not been with my friend. So to to feel part of that was, you know, was in a way life changing to me in two directions.

I mean, one, it took me along the direction of never wanting that to happen again, trying to get an understanding and a rationale of why it did. And why because I wasn't brought up like that. I was lucky to be brought up by parents who just saw everybody as being a human being and nothing to do with colour or background or race.

So I consider myself very lucky that I was born up in a family like that. Because obviously, not everybody is. And then as a youth, the main thing for me was to make sure that never happened again.

So also, it took me into a massive passion for my martial arts as well, to make sure which I'm now coached to make sure it didn't happen again.

[Steph Edusei] (5:35 - 6:11)

I do wonder as well, for people who, who are white, whether it's almost more shocking when you're part of that as well. And unfortunately, for people who are ethnically minoritised, people are Black, you, you kind of become used to it. So it's not that you, it's not that it doesn't hurt.

It's not that it doesn't affect you. But you almost expect that racism. Whereas when it happens, and somebody who is white is there and they witness it, it's almost more shocking.

Because you, it's not, as you said yourself, it's not something you'd experienced before.

[James Carss] (6:11 - 7:29)

It's not. And it's very different experience and something secondhand to first time to hearing about something can be very shocking, can be very disturbing, can be very upsetting. But when you're right there in the heart of it, it's very different.

I mean, I remember, you know, it's, this is not an endemic problem with the North East. It's global issues. I remember when, you know, in Hong Kong, we lived in a small village in the New Territories, which is up in the, up in the countryside.

And then, you know, local restaurant we used to go into all the time. I had a very good friend who was South African by background, Black, and had come up to visit me. And I took this friend to this restaurant where I'd been trapped very, very well, as a white expatriate, unusual in the community that I lived in, took him and they wouldn't serve him.

And I'd never, I'd again, never experienced that. And it was incredibly embarrassing. And he sort of shrugged it off, because obviously, it wasn't the first time in his life that he'd experienced that.

But that, and I, you know, I'd heard of stories like that. You see in movies, you hear people tell their accounts of things. But to actually, again, see it, you get a bit of a picture of how horrific it can be, and try to get some kind of understanding around it.

And it's, yeah, it's a pretty, pretty disgusting thing. But it's something that people experience around the world all the time.

[Steph Edusei] (7:29 - 8:07)

Yeah, quite right. And, and that colorism as well, because I think there's this assumption that, oh, well, actually, because you both come from minoritised communities, then that kind of thing won't happen. But that colorism that can go on between different ethnicities, and that anti Blackness is very real.

And we have done an episode about that previously. So it's kind of all of those experiences. And you've, you ended up in recruitment, and you now have your own agency that specializes in executive and non executive level recruitment, or with a particular look at kind of EDI perspective.

Is that right?

[James Carss] (8:07 - 11:21)

It is. Yeah. So when I set the business up in January, I wanted to, I guess, having spent 20 years in the sector, and run some pretty large businesses, and always been the frontline of doing executive search as well, and being hands on involved in that I wanted to, I think you've got an opportunity when you set something up yourself to do what you want to do.

I know that sounds obvious, but I but actually, you really do, because nobody else is set in the direction of the business, so you can do something you feel passionately about something that interests you not to not because it may fit a good business plan of somebody else. So I was very keen to not bring any external investors in or anyone else that would tell me the direction of the business. So this is something that I'm incredibly passionate about.

And also being part, you know, my my kids are biracial. So being part of a mixed race family, it's really, really important to me. And I think what I found going back to what we talked about earlier on, coming back to the after 20 years away, that actually things have changed quite a lot in terms of the demographics of people, you know, my kids are in school up here, and their school's 30% non white.

So it's changed quite a lot. But actually, there's a big discrepancy, then when you get up to organisations, I was going to say businesses, but actually all organisations, not for profit, third sector, and commercial organisations in their executive teams, and in the boards that they really don't fit that demographic, that is, it's still, I would say, particularly in the Northeast, behind other parts of this country, in terms of diversity, and also inclusion within those businesses as well. So I wanted to set up Castle Peak, to be able to make a difference. And actually, it's quite hard to make a difference in recruitment, it's quite a transit transactional industry, you find somebody a job, and you can potentially change their life from doing that.

But actually, they've done the work to get that role. And had you not introduced them somebody else would have done anyway. So it's it's more of a more of a facilitator.

But I really saw a role here where I could kind of challenge from the outside to the inside, give advice and actually make a difference to put things right, to a certain extent. And you know, there's a whole loaded area of things within that terms of how you do it. But for me, the biggest thing is all about trying to explain, and a lot of people still miss this in these organisations is the benefits of diversity, why you will have a great organisation, there's all these other things about being fair and giving everybody chance.

And we know that we know that. But the greatest thing that people miss, and this is where we get into sort of the box ticking and doing things for a certain reason. And that's why it can just go completely wrong.

But it's actually, you know, the innovation, the creation, the value that you get above everybody's role, when you bring people in from all sorts of diversity from different backgrounds. And it's, you know, it's an incredible amount of value above an individual's own role. And I think a lot of people still don't know that.

So I love to talk about that. I love to explain the benefits of it, and how it can can really bring an organisation forward to either their customers or the people that it serves. So essentially, that that's what I'm doing.

And, and it's great to be doing something that I really love, and I feel passionate about at the same time.

[Steph Edusei] (11:21 - 12:25)

Yeah, well, first of all, you're quite right. And I was just discussing with somebody recently about the fact that when you look at the charity sector, for example, once you get senior levels in the charity sector, and the bigger the charity it is, it gets more male and more white. In the hospices in the UK, there's 220 odd of us or something like that.

Until very recently, I was the only Black chief executive across 220. And I don't know exactly, but I suspect there's very few even at executive level, nevermind the executive level. So and that's not uncommon across the charitable sector.

But you're right, you then look at the public sector, very much the same and private industry and businesses, very similar. But when a company comes to you, and they say, right, James, we need to recruit to either an executive or a non executive position. And we want to bring in somebody who is diverse.

What type of things might you say to them that type of thing? What's the next step on from that?

[James Carss] (12:26 - 18:07)

Yeah, and that is normally how the conversation begins as well. And I'll always ask the question, first of all, and say, why? Why do you want to bring in somebody who's diverse?

And bring it right back to, okay, well, let's talk about your organisation at the moment. And tell me a little bit about in terms of how many people you employ, how that's made up. And then we'll get on to the executive team in terms of a bit of a breakdown, from gender split, male, female, ethnicity, all the other types of diversity that we know about.

And then to really get an understanding of that. And I suppose, for me, what I'm very aware of, and it goes back to that being able to make choices when you run your own consultancy in business, of being able to partner with an organisation that is really doing it for the right reasons. And there's a danger level here, that organisations do it to tick a box.

And there's all sorts of things, as we know, that can go wrong in doing that. And that certainly, you know, not processes that I'm quite keen to stay away from. So the first thing I do step is really get under the hair of them.

And I need to be having that conversation with a chief exec, or a chair, or somebody who's, you know, at a very, very senior level, because actually, that's where diversity begins in an organisation, right from the very top down. And going to what you said before, about your average, average, sort of makeup of a board or an executive team in the North East across all sectors, and actually, the ones you mentioned, are probably better than the commercial organisations as well, which is even, even more scary, quite scary, very scary. It is, it is, it's scary and disappointing.

And it shows a lot of the work, you know, I spent my 12 years in Hong Kong was recruiting into the financial services sector. If you think that charities aren't diverse at board level, you know, you go back, it's getting better in in financial services, because they're more regulated now. So they have to do it by the law.

So that means they can show diversity, but it doesn't mean they can show inclusivity. That that's another issue with that. But if you think about from a financial services point of view, your average bank, and then wanting to represent their customer base, and what that looks like people who go into a high street bank on the city centre of Newcastle, or Sunderland, or Durham type of diversity, you'd see going in is that reflected on an executive team.

And that's another thing with the North East that that was a bit disappointing to me coming back is people always referencing the fact that we don't have diversity up here. It's not London. Well, when was the last time you walked down Northumberland Street, or city centre in Sunderland, or there's other places.

And you know, we've got all these massive universities, we've had a lot of immigration coming through the last years, we've got, you know, professional working people in those roles, you mentioned before, the NHS, the most diverse organisation in the world, doctors, nurses and workers point of view, does that get through to the boardroom though? Yeah, so I don't necessarily agree with that. I think that's a bit of a lazy statement to make, if I'm really honest, and it's one that needs challenging and talking about, it may have been the case 30 years ago.

So so now it isn't. So yeah, so going back to your original question. So I really tried to get under the zips on the reasons on why they want that.

And do they, is there a good nature behind that where they could they can really see they're trying to go on a journey? Okay, because not every organisation's there. And it's about being honest with that journey and what that plan is around that journey.

And that doesn't necessarily mean quotas, that means what they're looking to change. And it could be about attitudes, it could be about behaviours, and why they think bringing that diversity into the boardroom onto their executive team will make a real difference on that. And that's the point where I can sit down and start to, you know, build it build a strategy around that piece of recruitment or that particular exercise to really find the right candidate.

But first and foremost, always find the best candidate for the role. Because it's such an issue if you're working with an organisation. And the first thing they say is we want diversity is there's a there's a there's a bit of a red flag there, that there's a danger of tokenism, which we know that and that can cause all sorts of problems by doing that.

So there's a lot of advice that needs to get and I think to keep it on a positive level at all, because there is there is a big, this is something that's coming up all the time, there's a big desire for change. And there's more and more people who I would say are singing from the same hymn sheet on this. So I do see good motives out there that is it is going beyond that box ticking and organisations are starting to see the benefits of it and really do want to change.

And if that organisation isn't there at the moment, and they do have problems, but that's fine. But it's about being honest and about open about that and how to fix them. But I do have to say, you know, with diversity inclusion, that it has to come down from the top, it's not about appointing somebody and making it that person's responsibility in an organisation that can help.

But but siloing that under HR, and then having a chief executive board that don't personify that, that don't say the same things, then you're trying to tick a box. And it's very, very obvious. You know, when I have conversations with potential candidates about organisations, they'll do the research, they'll look at a business, they'll look at the makeup of their board, which is out there for everybody to see these days, you know, go into a website, go into an about us section, you can see the backgrounds of everybody, you can see LinkedIn profiles.

But they'll also look at how long they've been there, and really see whether they're made. And it's not about having a diversity policy on your website, DNA will come out. And my job a lot to a lot of times is to bring that to life to potential candidates and to talk to them and be very honest about the journey that business may be on and what they're looking to achieve from doing it.

So you've got to be you've got to be honest from both sides, but kind of get on the front foot with it.

[Steph Edusei] (18:08 - 19:30)

And I think that you're right in that there's this thing of when a company does have a journey to make, as long as they recognise that first of all, they've got a journey, and that they're not there, because I think there's a quite a lot of denial or just lack of even awareness of just how far they are from being an inclusive organisation. Yeah, but if people are aware of that, and are honest about that, and I think that thing that you say about that ownership of it at the highest possible levels, and a recognition that it's not the responsibility of the person or people who come in to change that environment, it's the responsibility of the people already there to make that environment good for the people that are coming in. If people then go into that organisation who are, say, Black, and they're aware that that's what they're going into, then you expect some behaviours, but you know those behaviours are going to be dealt with.

Yeah, one of the challenges, I think, is when companies present themselves falsely, as though they are a very inclusive organisation. And then somebody goes into that organisation as a non-executive or an executive member, or in fact any member of staff, and what they're confronted with is discrimination, and nobody willing to even accept it or tackle it.

[James Carss] (19:30 - 20:40)

Absolutely, and that kind of appointment, and somebody having to feel that when they were, it will probably put that business back a good 10-15 years, in terms of their journey and what they're doing in the first place, it's very, very obvious. And what usually ends up happening is the person will end up leaving. If they don't get that support when they go in there, which is what you referenced before, coming right from the top, they don't have that level of support, they're not going to stay.

And then when they don't stay, what's going to happen? That organisation is going to blame that candidate. And so it's like a vicious circle, it's a spiral.

So that's one of the first things when I talk to any company or any organisation that's looking to make a change like that, I need to have those conversations from the chief exec to make sure that it's still there. And this isn't something that's just being kind of offloaded to be a project or something we're looking to do to make us look nice on our website and to give that level of diversity. It's got to be in the DNA of the business, otherwise that journey's not going to work.

And when it doesn't work, it'll actually cause more harm than good, particularly to that candidate.

[Steph Edusei] (20:41 - 21:37)

Yeah, the other thing that you referenced, actually, and I hear this a lot is that the person has to be able to do the job. And it irritates me a little bit, because if you are somebody who is minoritised, so in my example, you're a Black woman, the chances of me taking on a role that I am not more than qualified to do are really, really slim. Because there is that awareness of if I mess up, it's not just me, Steph, I do say that messes up.

It's that Black woman that we had that did that job messed up. And therefore that tarnishes all Black people, but definitely all Black women. And I think that a lot of us, particularly when we come in at a senior level, we have that sense of duty and responsibility of we have to do well at this, because if not, we're damaging things for everybody that follows.

[James Carss] (21:38 - 21:40)

You probably feel like you have to work twice as hard.

[Steph Edusei] (21:40 - 21:41)

Oh, at least.

[James Carss] (21:41 - 21:50)

But I think to get into the devil of the detail and the reference and what I was meaning by that is I guess the difference between a great candidate and somebody who can do the job.

[Steph Edusei] (21:50 - 21:51)

Yeah.

[James Carss] (21:51 - 25:10)

Yeah. So somebody who can do the job, I mean, somebody who fits every single line of a job description. And I always say, even without the realms of diversity inclusion, if that was the great candidate, why would they want to do the job in the first place?

So for me, a great candidate is somebody who will fit the values of your organisation. Somebody who's got outstanding potential, somebody who's aligned to that company and the journey that they're on, and someone who's got the capability to do the role. So it doesn't necessarily mean they're at that level of doing the role now.

They may have come from very different experiences. I mean, diversity can also mean different industry sector backgrounds and all sorts of different things. So I think, and that is being able to get the message out on what is a great candidate.

So then you start getting into things like writing of job descriptions, writing of job adverts, and then we get into the whole thing of the interviewing process and the levels of unconscious bias that can come out on that. So I do a lot of work talking to my clients around how to design that interview process, because everybody has unconscious bias. It's the elephant in the room that everybody naturally has it to a certain extent, but you can't allow that to creep into the interview process.

And it does. Inevitably, it always does. And that's one of the reasons, and what you mentioned before, referencing about the level of boards being that demographic of your typical white, middle-aged, straight guy who sits on a board or holds a chair position in the Northeast, no matter what the sector industry is.

Because of that, because people like to recruit people that they like, that they have something in common with. So you start the interview conversation with all good intentions, thinking we'll have a relaxed chat over a coffee and then break in the ice, and then end up, well, they're perfect for organisation because, you know, kids go to the same school together and do this, and we used to go to that school, etc, etc. You also then start to look at, you mentioned color before, but what about the level of chief executives who've gone to the same school and had the same type of educational background, particularly in charities?

There's been a lot of talk about that recently as well, with a lot of stats coming out. And that's not to be prejudiced against those individuals who have done it, but it does seem to be very disproportionate. And that's another area where unconscious bias, I think, or I believe actually, is a reason for that occurring within interview processes or not.

People are scared often to follow a more structured interview, which is actually very fair in a place where candidates will feel more comfortable with structured questions that they know they're being measured against, but being assessed against other people with the same area. Rather than this, just tell me a little bit about yourself. And then, you know, a potential interviewer who's assessing a candidate who's got a very different background to them, who's then looking with that kind of halo effect or trying to find things that are in common.

Those candidates are not going to make it through to the next stage. And that is what an effective board is. An effective board is made of people from different backgrounds, different experiences, working together as a collective to add an unprecedented amount of value to the group.

And that is that blue sky scenario of what you can achieve. Forget about the box ticket, forget about the right thing. You'll have a great organisation, first of all.

I think so many people just don't know that.

[Steph Edusei] (25:10 - 25:27)

Fantastic. I think that's a brilliant place to leave it, actually, because you've kind of, you've said exactly why it's important that we do this and that we think about those biases. With me, with unconscious bias, once you're aware of it, it's a conscious bias and you can do something about it.

[James Carss] (25:27 - 25:27)

It's true.

[Steph Edusei] (25:28 - 25:35)

But people don't even realise that they've got the biases in the first place. You've got to do that work to know it's the bias. You do.

[James Carss] (25:35 - 26:01)

You've got to be very honest with yourself and have those conversations and be able to front them up and look in the mirror. And that's about having the understanding of yourself as well. And often you might see things that you don't like as well, but it's getting that understanding because if you've got, especially as an interviewer, and you're going to make those decisions that are going to shape your organisation, who's going to sit on board?

And who's going to guide that strategy? If you don't know yourself, and you're not quite sure on that, how can you get to understand other people?

[Steph Edusei] (26:02 - 26:15)

I hope you've enjoyed that episode of Black All Year. It would be great if you could subscribe and review, because not only will it make sure that you get the content, but it will help other people to find it too. Take care.