Hindustan Times UK Edition
Vijay Dutt
January 5, 2004

London: Glass ceilings in the city are breaking. More and more Asians are entering British boardrooms, once the preserve of grey-haired white men wearing old school ties. One of the first to reach the top and also the most well-know the world over is Arun Sarin, the Vodafone boss, after Amulya Ganguly became a non-executive director at British Airways in 1996.

But, lately a large number of Asians have reached the director's level, although diversity is taking and has taken years to filter through the ranks.

Trinity Mirror's finance director is Vijay Vaghela, who was born in Kenya and came to Britain in 1974. Dipesh Shah, whose family came from Uganda, has been named the chairman of Northern Ireland's electricity group Viridian.

Another Ugandan-born Hanif Lalani is the newest Asian to be elevated to become finance director with 450,000 a year salary packet at the British Telecom. His family had come following Idi Amin's purge of Asians from his country. Muslim Investment banker Naguib Kheraj has replaced a white as director at Barclays.

BT Chairman Sir Christopher Bland was quoted saying that a Board that was entirely white was not reflective of the whole UK. Lord Browne of BP also wishes to see the end to the golf club culture.

According to a media report, recruitment trends among the major accounting firms, the training ground for future company directors, confirm that the ethnic mix is set to increase. Internationalism and multi-nationals spreading all over have made it imperative to recruit people from regions. Mohan Yogendran, E&Y recruitment director stressed the point when he pointed out that it would be better for business if there were more people on board who understood global clients.

Major companies have now diversity officers to see that ethnic minority staff members get chance to progress. This is radical change from the recent past. A survey in 2002 of 99 companies and public sector enterprises had found that there were only 44 people from ethnic minorities at the Board level.

At present there are a large number of Indians at VP and other senior positions in London in investment banks that have business operations in South Asia. A few younger executives did complain that the pub culture was inhibiting. They tend to go back home at the end of office hours, instead of going to pubs frequented by their departmental heads. "Thus our white colleagues get better chance to tell about their achievements and to know the boss's mind better than us," said a 35-year-old senior executive in a multinational.