Capita's CEO speaks about gender discrimination from a male viewpoint

This week marked International Women’s Day and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what the day means to me and to Capita.

Let’s not beat around the bush. I’m a tall, able-bodied, heterosexual white man working in the UK. I have personally felt the least bias possible – whilst arguably benefitting from it. 

However, I’m the son of a powerful female leader. I am married to a highly successful woman, mentored by one of UK businesses’ most successful female leaders and have spent my working career coaching high potential women. So, I could tell you all sorts of stories of bias and discrimination – and that is why I passionately wish to eradicate the problem.
Our greatest single challenge at Capita in breaking the bias is raising the aspiration of capable women within our organisation to apply for mid and senior management roles.  Whilst we have made huge progress in the gender diversity of our Board, Exec Committee and divisional leadership teams, we still see far too few women applying for these mid and senior level jobs. 

This is a widespread issue - so clearly this is a Capita problem and a problem in many other businesses. We have yet to create an environment where all women feel encouraged, supported and motivated to apply.

To address this challenge, at Capita we have set a policy which insists on diverse candidate pools for mid and senior level roles - I am committed to seeing through this change. Not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because our organisation will be more successful the more diverse it is.

Andy Start, CEO Capita Public Service

Andy Start is the CEO of the Public Service division which is a strategic partner to government in the application of digital transformation to improve the productivity of operations and to help deliver essential services to millions of customers