The Call for More Diversity in the SME Private Sector

According to the UK’s Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), UK SMEs account for 99.9% of the #business population and three fifths of employment in the UK. Of more than 30 million businesses in the US, fewer than 1% are public, listed on a stock exchange.
 
What Andrew Ross Sorkin’s New York Times submission “The Missing Piece in the Push for Boardroom Diversity” so deftly points out is that while it is critical to tackle the lack of diversity in publicly-listed companies, there is an equal (if not, arguably, greater) need to create intent in privately-held businesses.
 
If not for the moral arguments for #diversity (which may fall on deaf ears for some), as Ross Sorkin points out, there is a commercial reason to do so: “A growing body of research shows that more diverse teams outperform their peers. One study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reported ‘companies with more diverse #leadership teams report higher innovation revenue — 45% of total revenue versus just 26%.”
 
There’s a lot to be said for unity in a mission, without uniformity.
 
#diversity #diversityequityandinclusion #diversityandinclusion