Burberry
Designing an inclusive path to leadership

burberry_251wBeing recognised as the best performer in the FTSE100 for the second consecutive year is a proud moment for all of us at Burberry. This position reflects Burberry at its best: an inclusive, supportive, dynamic company where our colleagues can achieve their ambitions and bring their whole selves to work every day.

Like many companies, Burberry has programmes in place to stimulate and maintain our pipeline of future leaders, and our framework has an emphasis on inclusion: recognition and respect of diversity of thought, of approach and of experience. We need to continue to challenge ourselves to find new ways to develop our next generation of women leaders, and are committed to ensuring we nurture the aspirations of all our people.

All colleagues will have completed unconscious bias training by the end of this year and we devote time to teaching and role modelling inclusive leadership as part of our Leadership Development Programme. This is a three day immersive course for all our leaders that is supplemented by one-to-one development coaching over the course of six months to help them implement what they have learned.

We also provide courses designed to help our colleagues learn early in their career how to be more self-aware and supportive as they start to develop their own leadership style, and as part of our focus on wellbeing, we have partnered with the Samaritans to run workshops on how to best listen to and help one another.

‘At Burberry, we believe this strong commitment to inclusivity, and designing the path to leadership around it, will help us continue to support and develop more women to become great leaders and embed an environment of creativity and belonging, where all our colleagues can thrive’
Erica Bourne, Chief People Officer, Burberry