On Thursday 27 February we celebrated the launch of the 2025 Maturity Matrix at the House of Commons. In attendance we had Sarah Garret MBE, Dawn Butler MP, and Coral Taylor, (Head of Diversity and Inclusion) from HSBC UK, who won IIE’s Outstanding Employer Award at the 2024 Ethnicity Awards. The event also launched the 2025 APPG Report which you can view here.
This event was a beacon of positivity in a time when DEI is coming under fire globally; commitment to the cause is being tested and those who were looking for an excuse to roll back programmes have taken advantage of this, whilst others like McKinsey and JP Morgan have restated their commitment to DEI.
Over the past few weeks Investing in Ethnicity Members have asked us for advice and reassurance about their DEI approach, especially if they are a global company. However, last night the IIE membership gathered to not only celebrate their achievements, but also a widespread and long-term commitment to DEI in the UK. This, combined with the huge number of signups and interest in the Maturity Matrix we’ve had for 2025 shows that DEI is here to stay and that the UK is set to be a Global leader in this space.
The UK is well placed to be at the forefront of conversations around DEI, especially as a number of businesses have ‘split’ their approach, maintaining DEI in the UK whilst abandoning it in the USA. At IIE our message is clear, DEI is not anti-meritocratic, if anything it enables true meritocracy by levelling the playing field. Our advice in this time is to change the framing of the ‘anti-DEI conversation’ from ‘Inclusion vs Fairness’ to ‘Inclusion is Fairness’ to clearly demonstrate to sceptics that DEI is not about hiring underqualified people, it’s about opening the horizons to allow talented individuals from all backgrounds the chance to grow and develop.
The 2025 Maturity Matrix is now open for all organisations, if you want genuine and insightful perspectives into how your organisation is doing then IIE is uniquely placed provide that. Now more than ever, DEI needs to be refined, strategic, and employee led to be effective, and the Matrix can help you achieve that.
