What drives you to champion disability inclusion, and how has that shaped your work or personal life?
Before acquiring my own disability, the driver was my exposure to working with disabled people and learning about the very real barriers faced by disabled job seekers. My knowledge of inclusive hiring told me that there was no reason why we couldn’t champion changing this and educate recruiters to be more disability confident and remove those barriers.
This led to me establishing two powerful initiatives. Firstly, the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative (RIDI), through which volunteers have championed disability inclusion across the recruitment sector over the last decade and have had an enormous influence on moving people around in terms of work progress and getting new jobs. Secondly, an organisation called ClearTalents, a platform which provides adjustments in recruitment and at work for everyone. It reduces the need for people to disclose a disability, instead focusing on the simple but impactful adjustments their organisation can implement for them to be brilliant at their job.
In the past decade or so, as my vision has decreased, I’ve had to adjust both my work and personal life. But I made a determined decision that my disability and loss of sight was not going to define me; it was just one part of the bigger whole that had already been on this earth for 50 years.
What is your biggest impact at work lesson that you are most proud? And why?
I’m most proud of encouraging people to manage with transparency, honesty and integrity. There’s a tendency to shy away, for example, from performance issues or from giving constructive feedback for fear of either upsetting somebody or being disrespectful of the impact of their disability.
Transparent, open feedback is the biggest gift you can give to somebody who wants to grow their career or just simply wants to do their best at work, and I’m proud to have a number of examples where people have progressed and thanked me for giving them constructive feedback. Although it might have been tough to hear, it was constructively managed, constructively phrased, and enabled them to make the right decision.
What is the thing that brings you the most #WorkJoy?
My involvement in RIDI, which I continue to chair, brings me joy from the positivity, innovation and credibility of those who support me in it. It does feel like we’re pushing water up a very steep hill, but it’s influencing people’s lives every day of the week.
We recalled at a recent board meeting a case study from the first ever RIDI Awards. An individual recruiter had secured an interview at a law firm for somebody who was a wheelchair user. On the day of the interview, facing bad traffic and unable to find the accessible car park, the applicant was understandably getting stressed.
This recruiter jumped out of their office to find the individual and personally helped them get to the interview – and they got the job! It might seem a small thing to everybody else, but that will have changed that individual’s life, for the rest of their life.
More broadly, seeing people thrive and feel proud of their best work brings me joy. I love seeing people respond to a stretch and rising to a challenge.
Who or what inspires you most when it comes to driving inclusion and equality, and why?
I’ve been inspired by innumerable people, but I must mention Mark Lomas in particular.
We’ve worked together for many years and it’s his authenticity to his core that enables him to do such inspiring work. Mark’s bravery is one of the things I respect most about him; his work around race equality and the Inclusive Futures programme at Lloyd’s is going to transform tens of thousands of lives, yet he still retains his absolute commitment to disability inclusion.
He’s never become jaded, has never become complacent, and never strays from the path of seeking every opportunity to include disabled people, both in his own place of work and externally.
What are the biggest misconceptions businesses still have about disability inclusion, and how can they address them?
A key one for me is well-intentioned complacency. By this I mean organisations that wouldn’t dream of actively excluding someone because they have a disability, but are unintentionally doing so through a knowledge gap.
You need to understand what you don’t know around disability inclusion. Without lived experience – as a disabled individual, or through a disabled family member, or as part of our societal interactions – you’re playing a guessing game.
To address this, organisations need to educate themselves and their leaders. Learn about diversity of disability, learn about adjustments, learn about how it feels to care for or be somebody with a disability. If you don’t create this open culture where people can talk about the impact of their disability, you’ll have individuals who’ll crash and burn and need to take time off sick because you haven’t created an inclusive culture.
How do transparency and openness from senior leaders contribute to creating a fully inclusive workplace with fair representation and no engagement gaps?
Transparency and openness from senior leaders is essential. Without it, we have a permanent barrier across not just disability, but across all of diversity and inclusion. Organisational culture quickly gets blocked up if leaders don’t feel safe to speak out, be authentic or challenge a decision – because it sends the message that we can’t either.
I’m continually amazed at how low the figures are of disability representation on boards, specifically the FTSE 100, and I personally think even the published figures are untrue. I think we’ve got a lot of people masking and hiding their disability or not even understanding that their situation could count as a disability, such as a cancer diagnosis.
What was your favourite part of ActionAble 2025?
The example set by Sara Weller was inspirational to everyone who was lucky enough to attend ActionAble 2025. Hearing that level of transparency and candour from such a senior figure is a rare thing indeed and really set the tone for the day.
I loved learning the personal stories of individuals who spoke on the subsequent panel sessions; examples of lived experience brought the topics to life like nothing else and gave a richer context to the guidance that was shared.
What would be a great result or next step for you, your work, or the community following this event?
A great result for me? Sustainable change, however small it may be. We need to revisit the actions that ActionAble 2025 attendees have implemented as a result of this event, to explore, share and celebrate their impact.
What is your favourite quote that you would like us to include? And please explain why.
“Stop defining people by their disability.”
We need to accommodate people and create equity at work proactively – someone shouldn’t have to put their hand up and announce their disability. It needs to be part of everyone’s onboarding in every organisation that they can share anything they need to which impacts on their ability to do brilliantly at work.
