Embrace Difference Council Update
Simon Durrant has stepped down from his position as Chair of the Embrace Difference Council after two and half years and Chris Shaw, Sales Director at Diageo has been confirmed and commenced in the role.
Drinks Association CEO, Georgia Lennon said, “Simon has generously led the Council since its inception in 2019 with equanimity, warmth and the spirit of inclusivity that defines the Council itself, as well as its ambitions.
“We are most grateful for his leadership. Chris Shaw was appointed Chair at the beginning of the month and we are grateful to him for volunteering to serve in the role.”
For Mr Shaw, being Chair of the Embrace Difference Council is an opportunity he’s excited to take on, with the Council playing a critical role in ensuring an innovative, diverse and forward-thinking drinks industry.
He said, “Under the leadership of Simon and the contribution of all Council members, the Embrace Difference Council has already made significant progress on raising the visibility and advancement of the D&I agenda in our industry. As Chair, I’ll be bringing equal passion to our D&I ambitions and I look forward to working with the Council’s workstream leaders and all member organisations on how we continue to embrace and thrive on our differences to advance our industry and its leaders of tomorrow.”
In other news from the Embrace Difference Council, Create Difference workstream leaders Danielle Beale of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and Jeremy Turnham, previously of Lion, have both stepped down from their roles.
Mr Durrant said, “I want to say thank you to Danielle Beale and Jeremy Turnham who have positively led the Create Difference workstream driving key changes to International Women’s Day and the State Chapter program. They both leave us at this time, and we wish them well in their future roles.”
The Embrace Difference Council is currently recruiting new members to the Create Difference workstream and looking for a male and female lead. Any interested parties should speak with their HRD representative.
Meanwhile, the Council workstreams remain focused and continue to push forward.
Mr Durrant said, “The workstreams continue to raise awareness of D&I within member organisations and provide active solutions for improvement. I thank everybody for their hard work and dedication to change during this difficult time. You all continue to make a huge difference to our Industry.”
The See Difference workstream have focussed on the continued build of the Industry Scorecard and the development of the Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit. Levels 1 and 2 of the toolkit are now complete and the response so far has been encouraging with great uptake by board member companies.
Where the scorecard helps businesses benchmark themselves against each other – to actually see how they are performing on a D&I scale - the toolkit is intended to support companies as they progress on their D&I journey.
Mr Durrant said, “Levels 3 and 4 of the toolkit are being developed and will really assist those members already on the journey looking to ramp up engagement here. And we do need to ramp up! The second iteration of the scorecard is now available and while there has been good progress on what we are doing as an industry, we still have a gender mix similar to 2019.”
Anyone interested in joining the Create Difference workstream, please contact Georgia Lennon and any businesses not yet reporting to WGEA, are encouraged to do so.
The WGEA reporting window is open until 11 August. For more information, click here. Members are also welcome to submit data directly to the See Difference workstream.
Angela Burgum, Treasury Wine Estates, leads the production of the scorecard and can be reached via the Drinks Association.