Series 4, Episode 12: Our Founders: Reflecting on 30 years in DE&I with Femi Otitoju and Jane Farrell

Nicole Benton, EW Group Sales Executive,  speaks to Femi Otitoju, founder of Challenge Consultancy, and Jane Farrell, co-founder of EW Group, about their journeys into the DE&I industry. 

Sharing their personal stories and how they bring their experiences and social identities into their work, Femi and Jane discuss what has changed in diversity and inclusion approaches and legislation during their time in the industry. 

From the questionable cars in their early careers, to riding a fire engine through Pride and working with Mercedes-AMG F1, they reflect on their proudest moments and the exciting times ahead with the coming together of the two organisations, positioning them as the leading EDI consultancy in the UK with over 65 years’ combined expertise. 

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EW Group has worked with organisations to build more diverse and inclusive cultures for almost thirty years. Get in touch to explore how we can work with you to build safe and inclusive environments at work.

Transcript

Nicole: Today we have an extremely exciting episode of the podcast for you. For those who haven't already heard our parent company eQS has acquired Challenge Consultancy, and we're currently in the process of merging both organisations. Between us, we have over 65 years’ combined experience in delivering DEI initiatives, and have trained over 1.5 million people worldwide, in over 75 countries, making us the UK and Europe's leading EDI consultancy. Today we are joined by Femi Otitoju, the founder of Challenge, and Jane Farrell, the founder of EW Group. We're going to have a chat about both Femi and Jane's experiences in the DEI space and their vision for the future. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Femi: It's great to be here.

Jane: Yes, it's a pleasure. 

Nicole: Okay, great. So, let's get started. Femi, can you tell us a little bit about your personal story of growing up and what brought you into DEI?

Femi: I rather think I was actually born into DEI. My mother came to the UK in the late 50s. I was just six months old when she came, and she certainly had a bit of a struggle, as did so many immigrant women at that time. And it was just watching her working, trying to raise a family, trying to complete her education and all the gendered obstacles that she encountered that I think shaped my thinking. I wouldn't have used the words equality, diversity or inclusion, but I certainly had a sense of things being unfair and wanted to do something about it quite early on.

Nicole: Thanks for that, Femi. Can you give me a bit more information? How was Challenge born?

Femi: Well, Challenge came about as a result of my having been involved in equality, diversity and inclusion, or as we called it at that time, equal opportunities. Initially, there were two strands, there was my work and then my personal life – I had worked with a Greater London Council in the women's unit, for my local borough (Harringay) in the first lesbian and gay unit in the country in local authorities and that was all about to be abolished. Someone had said, ‘well, don't worry, there's a race unit, you can go and work for over there’. And I remember thinking, okay, so I've been a professional women's officer, I've been a professional lesbian, and now I'm going to go to a professional black person and that didn't sit well with me. I really wanted to bring all three together in what I called an integrated approach to equal opportunities, because the wonderful Kimberly Crenshaw hadn't then come up with the phrase intersectionality, which we now use to address that. 

The other thing that was running alongside for me is that I'd always been an activist, I'd always been involved in the women's movement, as we called it. And I'd always been connected to issues around race, doing reasonings in libraries where we bought members of the Black community together to discuss the issues of the day, like how we tackled oppression, and so on. So, for me, it was a coming together of my professional life and my personal life, to do something that would actually make a long-lasting difference.

Nicole: That's amazing. Jane, can I ask you the same question? How did you get into the DEI space and what were your experiences growing up? And how was EW Group born?

Jane: Yes, sure. So, I come from Liverpool. As a large Catholic family in Liverpool and one of five children (which was perfectly ordinary in Liverpool – many in my primary school were one of sometimes 10), I was very aware that my family and I were very privileged because we had books in the house. I was conscious that many of my fellow students didn't have that and lived in a degree of poverty. 

I was also really conscious early on that black and white communities lived in separate parts of Liverpool. My dad, when he came back from the Second World War (he went when he was 18, and came back when he was 25), like many men of his generation, he went into a job that he didn't have any qualifications for. He went (or was pushed!) into teaching and became a special educational needs teacher. So already there were elements of my surroundings, life and family where I was thinking about, as Femi says, what used to be called equal opportunities. I don't even think at that time I had that language, but I was conscious of difference. 

As the only one of the five children to go to university, that was a big thing. I remember my mum used to say university as though it had seven syllables, because she wasn't used to saying it, and she felt really kind of proud of it. So anyway, I qualified, I did a year working as a residential social worker with children who had been in the care system, and then qualified as a schoolteacher and moved to London. When I was working in Hackney, I became acutely conscious that I could not be a good English teacher unless I knew the students in relation to class, race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, and indeed, everything else. I became more and more interested and passionate about that. It wasn't only about what I knew as a teacher, the curriculum and the methodology, but how to take proper and appropriate account of difference. 

When I was a teacher, Section 28 was brought in – a terrible piece of legislation. And that was very galvanising for the LGBT+ community and quite a scary time to be a teacher. You weren't meant to mention the very existence of lesbians and gay men. At the time, I was out with placards, protesting police violence at least every other weekend, because the students that were coming into our schools were experiencing racial harassment and discrimination. To cut a long story short, I then thought, this is what I want to do. Because it's not only schools that need to know this – every single organisation needs to understand how systemic advantage and disadvantage operates. And then I met the wonderful Annie Hedge! We were in a further education college together, but they couldn't really understand what we were saying or what we were doing. So, in the end, we both thought, okay, we’re going to have to set something up, because it doesn't exist. Actually, if Femi and I had met all that time ago, we might have got our heads together! It might have been EW and Challenge 20 odd years ago. 

Femi: Absolutely. 

Nicole: Obviously the DEI space has evolved massively in the last 30 years. I'd be really interested to hear about the differences between then and now. I guess it must have been a much, much harder sell. In the last couple of years, we've had the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, we've had a lot of movements that have spurred organisations to start looking at diversity and inclusion and what it means to them. What's your experience of then and now? And what were the challenges that you faced?

Femi: What I remember was that EDI was seen as a very curious thing that a few specialist people did. And when organisations finally thought, actually, we as a business need to take this on, they would look around for one person to hold it. And usually that was human resources, or the welfare lady or one person – they got called a lot of different things! But basically, it was seen as something that was done by the people who were responsible for making sure the people, the staff, were alright. And so, there wasn't this sense of corporate responsibility. Even when a business said we're going to make this one of our aims, which is what I'm seeing now, there was still a big gap between the messages that came from the leaders, and the people who were actually supposed to be delivering. And in between, with all the layers of management, and all the staff who were going about their daily business, none of whom thought that they had any responsibility for furthering the equal opportunity agenda. 

What's changed now is that I'm seeing organisations put expectations around contributing to an equality and diversity strategy into what their managers have to account for. So you go to your appraisal, and you have to say how I've contributed every day. I'm seeing more staff being asked ‘what does it mean for you and how are you going to incorporate that into your work’. I'm seeing it being included in the recruitment processes of businesses, they're saying, ‘how do you understand equality and diversity?’ What does it mean to you? How might you implement it in this role? So, it's become part of the DNA of many organizations in the way in which it never was before. 

Jane: I think that's absolutely how I remember it too. And very often, it was seen as a compliance issue only. And, and quite often single aspects of social identity were focused on – the idea that more than one could be thought about in any one session was quite radical! I think it was a really hard sell. I remember, it was really difficult getting the idea across that DEI should be woven into every aspect of how an organisation works. And then to think about racism, and sexism, and homophobia and all those things. You could see some rather startled looks on people's faces! So, I think it was our collective jobs early on to try to make those linkages and then relate it to what people were paid to do. 

One of my favourite questions then and now is ‘tell me precisely how you're going to take account of race and sex in the way that you go about recruitment or managing your supply chain or writing a strategy’, linking it into what people are paid to do. And then making sure that different aspects of people's identities are connected. 

I remember, I had a really battered Ford Fiesta, when Annie and I started EW Group. It was so battered, I had to park it around the corner, because we were going into do this serious work. But honestly, if I had driven in in that car some may not have been quite convinced that this person is very professional or knowledgeable. It was just the start of the business, and I hadn't saved much when I was a teacher. 

Femi: That's made me laugh, about the vehicles and how people judge you by your vehicles. I remember, I think it was probably within the first three or four years of starting Challenge, I had what was then a very fashionable car, a Suzuki Jeep, a little tiny jeep. And I had two-foot high labrys (the double-headed axe representing lesbianism), and I had this massive black jeep where there's these massive bright pink labrys on either side of each door and a great big lesbian symbol on the front. And that's what I used to do. When I was going along to work and people. Well, they were intrigued that way. 

I remember also, there was that wonderful word mainstreaming. Do you remember when people finally realized that oh, we can't leave this in the hands of individuals we need to weave it into everything and then there was the mainstreaming revolution – everybody had to mainstream equalities.

Jane: Yes, I think that makes me remind me about how talking and trying to persuade organisations to think about that compound intersection of discrimination, as we didn't call it intersectionality then. I remember running it past my mother who could never understand what was then Equality Works (now EW Group) and why I had given up a perfectly good job with a pension to do something that she couldn’t understand. That ability to explain it to her and some members of my family was really good for me because otherwise it can be a ‘mind the gap’ moment. We can get sort of too rarefied, and I think that by rehearsing with friends and family we get a sense. I forgot to mention I came out as a lesbian when I was about when I was about 25 – another difficult conversation with my mother!

Nicole: I'd love to ask you Femi, as a Nigerian black woman what was your experience coming out?

Femi: I actually had a very comfortable experience in the first instance because I was alone. My mother had decided that she'd given up on the UK by then and would wait for us to make it all equal and fair for black women. So, my mum went back to Nigeria and I was here alone. Although that sounds a bit scary, the other thing it is, is freedom. For a lot of people, if you're in the middle of a community particularly if it's a minority, I think that community is your insulation against the day-to-day racism. So, if they're really supportive and you're in the middle of all of that, and then you think, well, now I identify as a lesbian or gender nonconforming, often what people did in my day is they left their cities and they left their towns and they went to London or Manchester, or the big cities where they could be themselves. But if you're part of a minority community, that's a really big step to take, because you're losing your shield. So, my own experience of coming out was a lot more comfortable than not, because I didn't have the shield. I didn't feel like I was leaving anything and there was everything to be gained, because I had this wider feminist and LGBT+ community, which at the time we just called lesbian and gay community. So that was comfy for a while. And then you realise that actually, an awful lot of the things that you feel in the, in the wider community are present in the microcosm of the Lesbian and Gay community as well. So then, I had another issue – I was trying to tackle race inequalities within this new community that I'd found, but all in all, it was incredibly supportive. And I did have a lot of people saying, oh, it must be really hard for you, the black community is really homophobic. And I had to say no they’re not, not any more so than any other community. It's really important to say that.

Nicole: I think it's important to not tarnish a whole community with one brush, because that's why we're here right? That's the whole point of what we do that. So, on the same breath, have you felt a difference in how open that you can be about your sexual sexuality working in their DEI space, as opposed to other industries? Do you feel a pressure almost to kind of bring that to bring that to work? When delivering?

Femi: I don't know if you want to go for that.

Jane: I think, certainly as a as a schoolteacher in when Section 28 and all of that was, it was a really scary thing to be to be out. And as a young teacher, it was actually really scary. And, and I think at that time, in my professional life, I was kind of half out, but not completely. Many of us were kind of trying to get that balance right. Just in case anyone doesn't know about Section 28, it basically said this awful phrase, which was, we weren't allowed to ‘promote’ homosexuality. And what that meant in many schools was that in personal social health education, no mention was made of lesbians or gay men. And so, it really was scary. 

In terms of my professional life now, I'm completely open about it. That doesn't mean however, with every session that I do with a board or a senior leadership team, I say ‘I'm Jane and I'm a lesbian’. I will weave aspects of that part of my social identity in a session if it's relevant, but not necessarily. Of course, there are some aspects of people's social identity which are visible and some which aren't. That particular aspect of my sexual identity I'm open about it, but I very rarely bring it into conversations. Because mainly, it's about the people in front of me, not about me. Yes, consultants have to be careful about that, in my view - not talking about ourselves too much.

Femi: It is nice to be able to do that today though!

Jane: Yes!

Femi: So, what happens to me a lot is that people contact me, and lately Challenge, because of who we were. When you've done the rounds in the 80s in a car like that, when you've been exposed and involved in the back lesbian and gay groups, when you've been doing all of those things, people know who you are, before you get there. So, there was no need for me to bring it into the room. In fact, often people would say, ‘we want you to bring that perspective to the work that we need you to do in our organisation’. So, I sort of came along with it like that, and there wasn't so much a need to present in that way. But those intersections between the bits, the bits that are visible immediately, the bits that come later, I think are what fit me to do the work I do, that keeps me going. It leaks out in the in the materials we use – I might be choosing to write a case study and I'll just make this person a particular ethnic group, I'll give them a name, that's clearly not English. It's not part of the case study, it's just there. And likewise, I'll pop someone into a same sex relationship or something like that. It's not part of the reason that there but it kind of broadens the scope of what people will talk about.

Jane: That's a great point isn't it, around all our all our materials and methodology will weave it in, it would be a bad thing if it if it didn't! We can demonstrate that we're thinking about it in terms of which case studies and all of that. And just thinking actually, of course, on some level it is interesting isn't it that Femi, Annie and I who set up EW are lesbians, there's something around that activism, around feminism and the 1980s. And for some not all, lesbians, of course, there's some connection, I think with not having children, obviously, plenty of lesbians and gay men have children, but there's something around that sort of time and space. But I don't know whether that's right. What do you think Femi?

Femi: I think potentially there is that. And I think also, there's something about a willingness to be different. We did not conform – once you decide to do that, you think well, I don't have to conform in any other way. So yes, mommy, you'd like me to be a doctor, but no! I've said no in several other ways before, so we carry on saying no. We've already forged a path when we've made that personal choice. And you know, the sky didn't fall! So now we continue to do radical things in all sorts of other ways, including giving up perfectly good jobs to go off and start small companies to change the world.

Nicole: And look at us now! So in regards to bringing your lived experience to work Femi, I'd like to ask you, have you ever felt the need to perhaps make yourself more palatable as a black woman? When it comes to delivering sessions, for example, around anti racism, obviously, there's the age-old stereotype of being an angry black woman, and especially when you first got started, how did you manage that? 

Femi: I'm a bit of a social chameleon. And that's partly about having moved to some of these places. So I was fostered as a child, it was a thing that Nigerian students did a lot. They pay for other people to look after the children while they studied. So, my mum's studying law and I'm fostered in Worthing in Sussex, I'm the only black kid in the entire town. So obviously, one has to learn to cope with that. One is sweet, people don't mind you – they give you sweeties and things, when it's a problem is when there's lots of you. But I learned to survive in that environment. And then in my early teens, or just as I was about to start secondary school, my mother brought me to London. So, here's this little black kid with a posh English accent, as far as all the kids in Hackney were concerned. I very quickly learned to speak ‘properly’ in London. And that lasted for a little while.

I was also meeting black kids who were nothing like me, didn't sound like me, hadn't had the same sort of background. My family were African, their family were Caribbean, when they left, they leapt into what we were calling patois. So now I’ve got to learn something else. And I become this social chameleon, that by the time I came to work in those different environments, it was second nature to and here's another phrase that we use easily but we didn't use at the time, it was second nature to co-switch, we just co-switched. And so, did I hide bits of myself? No, but I drew on different bits of myself. So that kid that survived in Worthing is the one that manages in the work environment.

Nicole: Thank you. Can I ask you what your proudest achievement is? A big question!

Femi: Around work, or…?

Nicole: I mean, in relation to DEI, what's a program that you've delivered? That's really made an amazing impact for example.

Femi: This is going to sound really frivolous, but it was! One of my proudest moments was the year that the Chief Fire Officer gave me permission to take what they called an ‘appliance’ – a fire engine to Pride. I think it was the first time that the London Fire Brigade had gone to Pride. I got to be on it, wear a hard hat and ring the bell and everything. I know that sounds really silly, but actually it was an indicator of a change in culture in the London Fire Brigade. We had gone through all manner of almost fisticuffs trying to get them to monitor on the basis of sexual orientation and to actually ask staff what their identity was., if you can imagine all those years ago. It was about getting them to get every fire station, every officer on every fire station to understand what these issues were, and to take them seriously. And to get that you couldn't treat people less favourably on the basis of it. And you couldn't do it to women. And all of that got wrapped up on the day that that man said, yes, you can take an appliance to Pride. And you know what I haven't even got a picture!

Jane: Femi has nobody got a picture of it. Are you sure?

Femi: I don't know if anyone out there has got a picture?

Nicole: Anyone out there if you have a picture, please send it in to EW Group or Challenge!

Jane: It's not nearly as good but I got to drive a double decker red bus once when I was working transport, but it's not nearly as good as a fire engine to Pride. I think it's a really hard question because we've both been doing this work for so long. I'm going to choose the piece of work that I started three years ago with Mercedes-AMG F1. I've just really enjoyed stepping into a world that I literally knew nothing about. I'm working with very brilliant, clever people such as Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton and others and getting into thinking about their teams, but also how they create their own pipeline of diverse talent. That's been a big piece of work. And one of the things I do in my spare time is my role as chair of Mulberry school Trusts, which is a multi-Academy trust in Tower Hamlets. And a lovely proud moment was when Mercedes-AMG F1 and Mulberry I was able to introduce them to one another and now there's a Mercedes / Mulberry STEM Academy. I recently went to the graduation, the first of the STEM Academy, and I choked at least three times as all of these young men and women all dressed up were having their picture taken in a real Mercedes car that they had brought into the school. And Lewis Hamilton is such a fantastic ambassador as well and doing such brilliant work. And I now watch Formula-1 as well!

Nicole: It's been so exciting to join forces with the Challenge team. I'd like to ask you both what are the synergies and similarities between EW and Challenge?

Femi: What were our roots? We didn’t realise it, but we followed the same paths personally and professionally. We were probably on the same demonstrations, although we didn’t know it at the time. And I feel that's true around EW as an organisation and Challenge – that we have followed a very similar path. We have been in the same sorts of organisations with the same approach, which is a good thing, this diversity is a good thing, and that we will work with you, no matter pretty much no matter who you are. And that we do it from a position of there's always something good in the business, it's our job to find it and to build on it. So, in that sense, I think there's a very positive, no berating, no chastising approach to the work, just a belief that we can make everything better if we all work together. I think that feels very similar.

Jane: I agree, such a lot of similarities! There are also similarities I think around organising really creative materials because it isn't a one size fits all and then here is our approach and we're going to go through it, it's actually stepping into our clients’ different worlds and pondering with them – okay, so this is where you are how, how can we help you get to a different place? That is our job. Not to sort of tell off or pontificate. But to actually get stuck in, roll our sleeves up, get creative with clients in that sector, in that company, in that organization, what can we do that will make a measurable difference? And that that is very exciting.

Nicole: And with that in mind, can I ask you both what are you most excited about in the near future? Both in relation to Challenge and EW merging together and also emerging DE&I trends?

Femi: I think first of all I have got to recover from the excitement! It has all been hugely exciting, even just thinking about it as a possibility was very exciting. And then there is seeing the possibilities of the ways in which we can build on both our work. It becomes bigger than just the two pieces of work, the two different approaches. So, at the moment I am excited about comparing what we are doing, learning from each organisation about our different successes, bringing our teams together, sharing our skills, developing new materials together. That’s the other thing, we have all these different ways of delivering things. Whether it be supporting people to create their own e-learning or we are making films for clients and experiential learning, as well as this online work that we have all had to learn to do. And I am really excited about the idea of getting the best from both and sharing across our client groups, our staff and consultant groups.

Jane: Absolutely. We have a strong shared analysis and we are approaching DEI in relation to systemic and structural discrimination and disadvantage. And that’s exciting because we set up our different businesses in order to change the world. It can’t be anything other than exciting that it is going to be bigger! Because we will have more impact on the world. And let’s face it, there’s still quite a lot to do! That in and of itself is exciting, and I am really excited for the staff team and very excited for our client as they get even better and even more. But also, for the staff in both organisations because it is expansive – there is going to be more opportunity around being able to work in different roles and gain different experiences. And that means we can more likely retain and develop the brilliant staff that we have. 

It is also, I think it is true to say, quite tiring the bringing organisations together, in the sense that there is a lot of emotional work that is going on. Both Femi and I have got people who have been working with us in this for a long time, for many many years. There is obviously some emotional work that is going on at the moment, and that is really good work for us as a consultancy and training company, to understand because a lot our clients are doing that work when they are merging or growing or changing. 

Femi: And I think, this piece of us coming together, is another manifestation of our mutual boldness. This is phenomenal stuff – we did it all those years ago, and now we’ve done it again, let’s do this! And I hope we will encourage others to be bold and our staff will be bolder and our clients will be bolder:

Nicole: Absolutely, watch this space because there is so much more to come! The coming together of the two organisations positions us as the leading EDI consultancy in both the UK and Europe. We have unrivalled expertise and a passion for what we do. With 65 years of combined experience, we are coming up to celebrating our two anniversaries as well which is very very exciting. I would like to thank you both so much for joining me today, it was so great to speak to you. And yes, watch this space.

Jane: A real pleasure Nicole!

Femi: Thanks Nicole!