Inclusive Leaders & CEO Impact Podcast by DIAL Global
Bi-weekly podcast show featuring conversations with inspiring thought leaders of today, unearthing their unique stories of inclusion, belonging, equity, talent, culture and social impact.
Inclusive Leaders & CEO Impact Podcast by DIAL Global
Unveiling Inclusion Strategies with Mark Lomas
Advancing Diversity and Inclusion: Insights from Mark Lomas of Lloyd's of London
Join us on Inclusive Leaders as we sit down with Mark Lomas, Head of Culture at Lloyd's of London, to explore his inspiring journey and the impactful strategies he employs to foster diversity and inclusion across the organization. From meeting ambitious targets in leadership diversity to innovative initiatives like the Inclusive Futures program, Mark provides actionable insights grounded in evidence-led approaches. Tune in to learn how authentic leadership and a commitment to equitable opportunities drive cultural transformation and success.
Hello and welcome to Inclusive Leaders. This is a show where I speak with the most inspirational and thought-provoking leaders of today and unearth their unique stories of diversity and inclusion to help inspire, educate and motivate others to make the world a better place. Today, I am absolutely thrilled to be joined by the brilliant Mark Lomas. Mark is the Head of Culture for Lloyds of London. He's had an enviable career, having worked for the likes of HS2 for those in the States, that's High Speed 2. Of HS2 for those in the States, that's High Speed 2. He's also worked as a diversity manager for the BBC and held an array of other roles in his formative career, such as working for the Law Society of England and Wales, amongst other things. Mark, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, great to be here.
Speaker 1:We go way back, Mark, don't we? So I think, for those who don't know you as well as I do, it'd be wonderful to have a little bit of a run through about you, the great work that you're doing at Lloyds of London and what you're seeing in the market at the moment.
Speaker 2:Sure. So my road to Lloyds was a long and windy one through a number of different sectors In my experience, all sectors, particularly in the UK and mostly globally. You retain that talent, how you progress that talent. And that talent might not just be kind of the people you employ, it might be how you engage with communities, it might be supply chain activity, et cetera, but essentially how you do the best business. I think that's what I focused on in my career. I came to Lloyds in January 2022.
Speaker 2:And it's been great to see the progress that Lloyds has made over the last few years. So in 2024, Lloyds met the women in leadership ambition that it had set a number of years ago, which was for 35% women in leadership across the market. We met that in 2024 and began to exceed it this year. We set a one in three hiring ambition for ethnically diverse groups as part of our inclusive futures work, our response to Lloyd's history with transatlantic slavery. That continues to progress with 2,509 hires this year alone from that community and over 7,000 since its inception have launched our inclusive futures program and have seen the market as a whole go from below financial services benchmarks on the culture survey and basically on all indices in 2019 to above on 25 out of 27 of those indices equal on one and below one. So it's a story of some really good progress over a period of time. I think a consistent approach, evidence-based approach and then having a number of parties and organisations pulling in the same direction is definitely a contributing factor.
Speaker 1:Wonderful and, mark, on the personal side of things, you've done some incredible things on a personal note and I think what's really fascinating about you being in this culture role for such a well-known organisation is the fact that you bring your personal experience into how you then lead with authenticity, you lead cultural change and ultimately understand that full 360 strategic approach to creating a more equitable future. Talk to us a little bit more about the personal and the business.
Speaker 2:Sure. So all my training was in music. As you know you've heard this story before All my training was in music. So I went to music school here. I went to Juilliard School at 16, finished university at 19, and kind of came back to the UK ready to kind of forge a career in classical music, having made a good amount of money playing concerts when I was younger. And then I ran into a real life lesson, which was network was absolutely king, and that experience of kind of being really highly successful and then having future success predicated not on your competence or ability but on your network and access really was a really difficult life lesson.
Speaker 2:After getting quite frustrated and quite broke to waiting for things to happen, I went back to Bermuda for three weeks, which is where I'm from, got off the plane at kind of 6.30 and had numerous job offers by kind of nine o'clock that night. And that experience over the next week or so really kind of led me to reflect what on earth is different about me? And then the answer was nothing. What was different was the environment, my access to networking and opportunity. And so when I flew back to the UK I started to do lots of music, technology work and folks were going off on tour.
Speaker 2:So I decided to work with a disability charity just to keep myself busy and out of trouble.
Speaker 2:Plus, my daughter was born, so I wasn't going to get away with going off on tour for a few months with a newborn and I was basically a pain in the backside to that regional manager. Why do you do things this way? Wouldn't it be better if you did this? Or blah, blah, blah. And so she sent me to the diversity committee and I observed that meeting was very direct with the CEO of an HRD at that meeting and that one opportunity to cut rather differently. And then from there I've had a series of really interesting, really interesting roles like designing the benchmarking system, the Law Society, diversity and Inclusion Charter for the legal sector. Then going on to HS so they go to BBC sorry, doing lots of work there on how they manage diversity and inclusion in kind of the media sector. Then HS2 with the billions worth of supply chain and procurement and then on to Lloyd's Market who had particular challenges around diversity, retaining talent, progression of that talent and transforming really the perception of the market and transforming really the perception of the market.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, it is an incredible story and it doesn't matter how many times I hear it.
Speaker 1:I always reflect on that and think, from arts and creativity, which I do think does not get the kudos that anyone necessarily gives it in a professional context, it has such a lot of power to enable other great things to happen.
Speaker 1:And, as you've articulately said there, um, you know, going into being very sector agnostic in terms of the experience working in everything from media through supply chain diversity, right the way through to talent progression, culture and even, ultimately, sales and marketing, because we're obviously serving our customers, who are ultimately diverse, it just shows that real golden thread, as we within this industry often like to call it, and it is very much that golden thread that you articulate throughout the personal career, but also within the various skills, the industries, the verticals within organisations that you've worked in. So I guess, moving into some of the strategies that you have taken and perhaps some of the more nuanced challenges of the insurance sector, talk to us a little bit about those. Obviously, lloyds is doing very, very well when it comes to meeting targets and increasing everything from ethnic diversity through to the great success of the Dive In Festival. Talk us through how you've looked at this as a business and what perhaps other organisations and leaders can learn.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, I think one of the benefits of the Lloyds market is that it is a market, so it is a group of organisations and, yes, while that adds some kind of stakeholder management complexity and you have to listen to views and take people with you and organizations with you, it also means when you move in concert, you can make progress rather quickly, and I think there are a number of things which have contributed to sort of the increase in progress or the rate of progress over the last few years. I think the first is alignment on what we mean and where we're going, so that's very important. What does good look like? What are we trying to achieve? The second is being able to articulate a very consistent framework for companies across the market. So we have our culture oversight framework, which helps companies understand exactly what our expectations are in terms of culture, diversity, talent, etc.
Speaker 2:When you're working in the Lloyds market, and that consistent framework is very, very important. And then we have the approach that I've always liked to take, which is this is a continuous improvement game that we're all in together, and that means we spend time ensuring that we have really great data and insights and we get that through our markets, practices and policies return on diversity and data. We understand what it feels like, via the culture survey, to be an individual in our sector and we have great routes to engage and inspire people, like the Dive-In Festival and being kind of evidence-led. So making sure that you have that evidence base to design your policy and interventions means you can kind of aim and shoot where you need to make progress. Of aim and shoot where you need to make progress, and then being able to work across a market which is, you know, more than 50,000 strong, has a plethora of opportunities, means it's a convincing story that you can tell to people and broadly.
Speaker 2:We had to do better at that and we started to do much better at that. You know, this year I think I don't think our early careers applications have closed yet, but the number of applicants stands at 6,000 plus now. Last year it was 7,000 plus for 28 spaces at the corporation we are attracting a hugely diverse range of talent and top talent, so much so our early careers process could feed the entire Lloyd's market by itself, and that is a complete change from three years ago. So I think what it demonstrates is if you act on the evidence, you act in concert and you engage people and have a consistent framework for people to work against, you can make pretty rapid progress mark.
Speaker 1:Like me, you are as geeky about frameworks and data um as I am. Um. It's the classic, isn't it? What gets measured, gets done. And evidence-based frameworks and diversity, inclusion, belonging, equity, culture, all of those wonderful things are the heartbeat of our organizations. It's really those as commercial levers to drive the economic growth and prosperity that we are wanting to see, that we are looking to see and hearing some of these statistics are. You know, they're really a great number of steps forward from where you were a number of years ago, thanks to to yourself, of course.
Speaker 2:I wish I could claim the credit Certainly not any work of genius on my behalf. It's hundreds of people working across the market.
Speaker 1:Well, well done to everyone who is listening in from Lloyds. It does mean a lot for, I think, employees to hear and to feel, because this is a hearts and minds thing as well. As much as we love data and we love numbers and we love all of these statistics, it's also a hearts and minds piece, and employees who really connect with their leaders, like yourself, and they share some of those similar experiences engagement goes through the roof. A stat that you probably heard many a time that still makes me smile is that those who feel that they don't fit in spend 30 percent of their time worrying about how they do.
Speaker 1:And I often think about that when I reflect on the career, as I'm sure you do, and as you are working with early careers individuals. Wanting them to succeed is. Think about the time where you're worrying about how you're perceived in interview and in early careers conversations. Well, that could be going into productivity if you were less worried about how you looked, sounded, all those kind of things. And so it really is that cultural piece that's at the heart of of what we do and why it's so important to have culture officers like yourself holding and driving the mantle forward. So before we wrap up, mark, it would be great just to ask a couple of lightning round questions. If I may, I'm going to give you about 30 seconds to answer each of these. What's authentic leadership to you?
Speaker 2:So I think the best authentic leaders in gender trust in their teams. Number one, it is about being yourself, but it's not about just doing things the way you want to do them. I always think it's my job to get the best out of my team, and if that means different approaches for different people, then that's what it means. So, consistent values, consistent approach, um, very, very, uh important, and I think it's that, um, you know you, you can, you can demonstrate what's meaningful to you by the way you act, and that kind of uh open, honest and early, I think is the absolute best way to engender uh trust with the, with the team and who's inspired you most throughout your career, or indeed your life or do you know what?
Speaker 2:I've had so many? Uh, I've had so many really good managers. You asked me this last time and I uh and uh, or before, and um, uh, so, um, a couple. Number one that that regional manager that I mentioned from shore trust with, without. Without her, we wouldn't be talking in disguise today, definitely, but I'm also a complete Liverpool fan, so one of the kind of leadership positions that I really admired was Jurgen Klopp and his statement, which was all I need you to do is turn you from doubters into believers and we'll be successful. And that ability to craft a common vision and get everyone behind it is something that I've often seen in the most successful leaders, whether it be football or any other industry. So for me, I always think about that. If I can turn any team from doubters into believers, we're going to get where we need to go.
Speaker 1:And finally, any closing remarks or advice to any other practitioners right now who are facing the dreaded words geopolitical headwinds and you know, of course, headwinds, and you know of course this is a role, the role of culture, inclusion of social responsibility, of business for good. It comes with it a lot of responsibility and it needs a lot of tenacity. So give us some great advice for people who are listening in thinking I've got to dig deep and find something, somewhere to keep moving the dial in the right direction.
Speaker 2:So I think for me it's, you know, it is alignment to the business strategy. What is it the business is trying to achieve? And you know, when you boil away the complexity, every business is after the same thing, right they do a better job with the customers or clients that they have. They find new customers or clients, they innovate new products or services. They have the best people, talent, working for them, attracting them, retaining them, and essentially that extends to the suppliers they work with in their wider ecosystem. So you've got to figure out what is important to the business that you work with and how you help them achieve that.
Speaker 2:And I always say it's not my job to be an activist. I'm a Black man. I don't speak for every Black person on the planet, let alone every black man. It's my job to represent the entire organization and I should be able to stand in front of any group of staff or stakeholders and answer a really simple question and that's what have you done for me lately? And if I can answer that for anyone in our ecosystem that needs to ask it, then I can be pretty confident we're doing a good job. And that sometimes means saying we're not doing anything because the data, the evidence tells us we don't need to and things change. So that evidence-led approach means that when you need to pivot, you can pivot based on evidence, what's right for the business, what's right for the wider ecosystem, and not necessarily any fashionable headwinds at the time.
Speaker 1:Unbelievably wise words to finish on, mark. Thank you so much for joining me. Some of the things that really stood out for me from our conversation and I always learn something when we speak is to really go back to some of our initial values and to remember, for those that are coming up in their careers, how important having that strong network and creating access to opportunity is if you're a more senior manager, because talent is everywhere. We've heard many a time talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not and I know that's something that we share a running theme to our, our passion to do this great work but acting on evidence absolutely key. Like any other business strategic imperative, this needs evidence. It needs that evidence-led approach that you've spoken about and being able to liaise with various different stakeholders at lots and lots of different levels, and so activism for the one, necessarily, but actually making sure that we look at this as a more holistic business strategy, from supply chain to where we're putting our pounds, our black pounds, our pink pounds, our you know, our women owned organizations and female led pounds right the way through to the employees and the customers we serve. Female-led pounds right the way through to the employees and the customers we serve. Mark, it's been tremendous having you, as ever, absolutely brilliant conversation.
Speaker 1:If you have been affected by anything in today's podcast, please make sure you reach out. Don't be a stranger. You can check out Mark's profile. He is on LinkedIn Search Mark Lomas and also visit Lloyds of London. If you are looking for a summary of some of the learnings from today's show, you can check those out as well at wwwdialglobalorg. Forward slash podcast and in the meantime, we will look forward to seeing you again very soon.