INTRODUCTION TO DIVERSITY PAGE

I have always believed it is not where you came from that matters - but where you are going. It's not a matter of how many years you have got - but what you have done with those years and whether you retain a youthful sense of curiosity and possibility. Looking beyond how someone looks, their gender, the colour of their skin, their sexual orientation - all this for me is essential to be fully human, fully alive.

In the last decade, my main focus on diversity, has been working for a better deal for disabled Britons. As the first (and last!) chairman of the National Disability Council (the forerunner of the Disability Rights Commission) from 1995 to 2000, I had the privilege of leading a talented and committed group appointed by the Government to fight discrimination against disabled Britons. I summarised my learning from the NDC in an interview with the EFD magazine - summer 2000. From 2000 to 2005, I was championing accessibility on the railways as a non-executive director of the Strategic Rail Authority. I am a Patron of the pan-disability charity Scope and continue as an ambassador for the National Aids Trust.

My forward agenda on diversity includes:

• Continuing to promote a more accessible transport system through support for Scope's work on transport and monitoring implementation of the Railway Accessibility Strategy
• Helping businesses - including smaller firms - to understand the diversity aspects of the Responsible Business (CSR) agenda
• Supporting Scope's Diversity Works campaign - and in particular, helping to build an action-learning set of organisations to work on how better to attract, recruit, train and fast-track talented disabled Britons
• working with the Disability Rights Commission and a group of executive search firms and disability charities to get more disabled Britons on to the boards of public bodies

Hot-Links Diversity

• Scope
• BITC Diversity channel
• Employers' Forum on Disability