The number of black executives at the top of Britain’s blue-chip companies is zero for the first time in six years, research by consultancy Green Park has found.
There are no black chairmen or chairwomen, chief executive officers or chief financial officers at any company in the UK’s benchmark FTSE 100 stock index, according to early findings from the analysis.
Only 10 of the 297 leaders in these roles have ethnic minority backgrounds, the findings show.
The FTSE 100 Index lost its only black chief executive Arnold Donald, when cruise-ship operator Carnival Plc slipped out of the benchmark gauge in June following a quarterly rebalancing.
"These figures put some flesh on the bone of last year’s [Black Lives Matter] protests," Trevor Phillips, chairman of Green Park said.
"We know there is no shortage of qualified candidates to fill these roles if companies are willing to look. Yet the snowy peaks of British business remain stubbornly white."
The former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission urged against a "return to business as usual" and called for corporations to "start questioning whether Black Lives Matter is just rhetoric rather than reality".
“Corporate leaders need to stop telling us how much they care and do something to show us that black lives really do matter,” he said.
