Why doesn’t Britain have more black bosses?

The FTSE 100 did not gain its first black chief executive until Tidjane Thiam was appointed to run Prudential in 2009 and the situation has not much improved since then. Beyond Arnold Donald, chief executive the London-listed US cruise operator Carnival, and Sharon White, chair of the John Lewis Partnership, examples of black people at the top of the largest British companies are few and far between.

It is a similar story across all other ethnic minority groups. There are around half a dozen non-white chief executives or chairmen at FTSE 100 firms, including Laxman Narasimhan, boss of Dettol and Clearasil maker Reckitt Benckiser.

The numbers reflect issues with bias on recruitment and promotion panels, according to diversity experts.

“Nominations committees kid themselves that they are selecting on merit,” according to former Equality and Human Rights Commission chairman Trevor Philips.

“When it comes to the major boards in Britain, the historic tendency has been to appoint people they know. By and large the definition of merit can be condensed into three words: someone like me,” he says. “The idea of what a useful board member looks like rarely extends to people who are black.”