DIVERSITY
BH : Sustainability is now firmly on the corporate agenda and diversity and inclusion goes into that . You don ' t even need to get people to agree with it , it ' s a no-brainer .
IA : This is why I was so keen to take you up on your offer . One of the things I ' m trying to do is move this conversation from , purely the diversity and inclusion piece into the ESG conversation . For it to be a meaningful part of what corporates do around the ' S ' of ESG .
BH : What was the process of you finding out that you were going to be appointed before and immediately after ?
IA : I probably talked myself into this job . I was hearing about initiatives the government had planned , not least the plan to have a global LGBT conference bringing together lots of kind governments and policymakers . Two things struck me : the first was that nobody was really talking about the role of business . They were talking about political actors , civil society , actors , and , actually , businesses and the workplace is where most people spend most of their time .
The second is that most of my career as we built Cicero from the ground up , has effectively been operating an SME . Just before the pandemic hit , we sold a majority stake of the business to the global communications group Havas , which is part of [ French media conglomerate ] Vivendi . So I ' m now part of a very large global business with a lot of power and strength .
“ One of the things I ' m trying to do is move this conversation from , purely the diversity and inclusion piece into the ESG conversation ”
IAIN ANDERSON CO-FOUNDER &
EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN , CICERO / AMO
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