Diversity and inclusion success for Aberdeen organisation

By Jamie Wilde

August 19 2022, 11:45 am

Ollie Folayan, AFBE-UK Scotland, has been honoured for his efforts

Aberdeen diversity and inclusion organisation AFBE-UK Scotland has successfully run its first senior leadership programme to help ethnic minority professionals progress into leadership roles.

AFBE-UK Scotland supports people, particularly those from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds, with career aspirations in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

It has supported thousands of young people since launching in 2011 and is part of the wider AFBE-UK network.

Transcend

The virtual programme named Transcend ran for 10 weeks from April to July and was delivered through a series of sessions aimed at unearthing the barriers to career progression and charting a path into leadership.

The sessions delivered covered a range of topics including communication, unconscious bias, limiting behaviours, role models, coaching and mentoring.

The goals of the Transcend programme were to inspire, engage and equip professionals of minority ethnic origin with the tools they need to progress into corporate leadership roles.

It was aimed at individuals with over 10 years’ experience in senior and lead engineering roles in their organisation to progress to high-level management and executive positions.

Due to its success, AFBE-UK Scotland has plans to run the Transcend programme in collaboration with companies and organisations going forward.

Rewarding

Leadership coordinator Dr Roy Bitrus, who led the Transcend programme, had been working on the training course for over two years prior to its start date.

Dr Roy Bitrus, AFBE-UK Scotland leadership coordinator.

He said: “It is a great joy to see a project that started as a conversation with AFBE-UK Scotland chairman Dr Ollie Folayan in 2019 come to fruition. It has been nothing but rewarding.

“Participants have had a safe space to speak up and learn from collective experience of others and from carefully curated content aimed to inspire effective leadership amongst ourselves.”

‘One can achieve any career goal’

Moses Onwuzurike, project lead at Dubit, was part of the Transcend programme.

He said: “Before attending Transcend, I had this mindset of people of colour having a career ceiling in the UK.

“But now, I believe that one can achieve any executive management career goal by demonstrating great leadership skills, which the programme covered in abundance.

“The Transcend training programme had clear learning objectives and the delivery style was very engaging.

“I have started applying what I learned and can already see a better version of myself in my career.”