RESEARCH REPORT

Transparent: Creating Organisations Inclusive of Black Women

October 11, 2021

Diversity, equity and inclusion have long been priorities at Mastercard, and we’ve repeatedly used our resources to tackle the issues associated with creating a more inclusive economy – for our people, for the markets we operate in and for society as whole.

Black women continue to be underrepresented in leadership roles across the UK workforce and studies of women in the UK workforce that include the intersectional experiences of Black women are minimal. This has resulted in most of the leadership theory and organisational policy being built on frameworks that potentially exclude the unique barriers that Black women face.

For this reason we were delighted to partner with the London School of Economics (LSE) on this important research, to better understand the barriers Black women face at work.

“While there is already much data available around the barriers women face in the workplace, and indeed, those faced by ethnic minorities, there was little to inform us about the intersectionality of these two demographic groups.”

Ann Cairns, Executive Vice Chair of Mastercard

From the analysis within the report the authors created the TRANSPARENT framework, a new framework to create organisations that are inclusive of Black women in Finance, Professional Services and Big Technology.

The Inclusion Initiative (TII) at the LSE, Mastercard and the 30% Club hope to inspire firms to adopt these actions. This thought-provoking research and the TRANSPARENT framework will be used to Mastercard's own future activities and policies going forward and we hope they will also be of use to many other companies wanting to leverage it and tackle the issue within their organisations.

RESEARCH REPORT