On Tuesday, at the Hilton Park Lane in central London, around 650 members of the HTL and retail sectors gathered to discuss the topic of EDI at WiHTL & DiR’s 2025 Inclusion Summit. This is our eighth year partnering with WiHTL & DiR on their Impact Report, and having a room full of hundreds of people who were split almost equally between returning attendees and newcomers highlighted how far diversity and inclusion has come since our partnership began.
This year, there were four panels, four presentations, three breakout sessions and even a wellbeing session, all focused on different areas of inclusion within the HTL and retail sectors. It is no secret that 2025 has been a challenging year for EDI and Tea Colaianni, Founder and Chair at WiHTL & DiR opened the summit with this thought: “Inclusion in 2025 is complex and the terrain ahead is changing. But creating workplaces where Opportunities for All exist is not just necessary, it’s essential for us to build sustainable growth and performance.
“I passionately believe that our industry not only upholds the values of inclusion and fairness but also sets an example of resilience and responsibility for others to follow.” I was delighted to be asked to present the findings from our 2025 Impact Report, created in partnership with WiHTL & DiR, which analyses EDI in leadership teams across both sectors.
As I outlined to the Summit, our research has continued to track gender diversity and ethnicity at the most senior levels across HTL and retail, and progress of gender representation at Board level continues to steadily increase. At Direct Reports level progress has remained fairly consistent in HTL, however, has dropped to 47.7% in retail having advanced to over parity last year. Tracking ethnic diversity at leadership levels has been less encouraging, as at Board level, after four years of a steady increases, there has been a significant decline this year – although positively, the numbers are still far above when we first started collecting data. The same cannot be said for Direct Reports level, as in retail this has now dropped to the same level as when we began our research in 2021, while in HTL it has fallen from 10% last year to 6% this year.
These mixed numbers very much illustrate that progress has been mixed. However, businesses within our sector are still prioritising EDI: our research showed that there has been an increase in data collection despite disclosure rates still posing a challenge. Many organisations are also adapting their language to be more emotionally resonant, now preferring terms like ‘belonging’ and ‘inclusive leadership’. As in previous years, the organisations that have support from leadership and strong CEO sponsorship are also the ones that are often furthest along in their EDI journey.
Our research also showed that, for said businesses that are further along in their EDI journey, social mobility and neurodiversity have become more central focuses, having spent many years either on the periphery or not on the DE&I agenda at all. Social mobility was a key topic of the summit, with the idea of ‘social capital’ raised as an important area for consideration. Zahoor Ahmad, Head of Social Mobility, Inclusion and Belonging at Co-op explained how their focus here has allowed them to progress the EDI agenda through other lenses as well: “A huge majority of ethnic minority applicants were not getting through interviews because they didn’t have the social capital that allowed them to know the correct way to answer questions like ‘why do you want to work for us’.”
Chief People Officer, Sophie Smith shared that at Compass UK&I, there was a real focus on supporting young people from lower social economic backgrounds by equipping them with skills that make them employable, and offering wellbeing support during their learning and growth. In the ‘Leading with Inclusion’ panel, it was inspiring to hear that routes from the shop floor to the top are both available and attainable as CEO of Sainsbury’s, Simon Roberts, and Moto CEO, Ken McMeikan, both recounted their own experiences of working their way from the ground up to the top role in their respective businesses.
“What is the job of a CEO? The job of a CEO is to create an inclusive company.” – Simon Roberts, CEO, Sainsbury’s
Within that discussion, both CEO’s impressed the importance of creating a psychologically safe environment for everyone to progress. Ken pointed out that “people don’t forget the way other people make them feel,” whilst Simon said he was striving for “an environment where everybody can say what they think all the time.” Suzie Welch, Managing Director UK&I of Odeon raised a similar point during a discussion around intersectionality, saying: “Leaders creating space is hugely important. How curious you are, how aware you are, and how much time you take to stop and listen to what’s going on around you is key.”
This fed into another theme that underpinned many of the conversations of the day: not leaving anyone behind. Creating an environment where everyone is able to come along on the journey is a large task, that can be made more simple by miniscule changes. Iris Bohnet, Co-Director, Women and Public Policy Professor of Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, shared these small but impactful changes employers can integrate into their workplaces and hiring practices.
One example saw a business interested in offering the top 20% of applicants for a leadership position the opportunity to reapply for other vacant leadership roles after the initial job was filled. After adding one sentence to the outreach email, which shared the information that the recipient was a top 20% applicant, the gender of those who re-applied shifted dramatically from the majority being men to an almost even split. Another example highlighted that any ambiguity gave way for our own affinity bias to “fill in the blanks” showing how crucial it is to be precise and intentional in order to create more inclusive environments.
As the summit came to a close, one thought that appeared to resonate came from Simon Roberts at Sainsburys, who had posed the question: “What is the job of a CEO? The job of a CEO is to create an inclusive company.” This message that leadership should be the ones driving change within their organisations is not only supported by data, but reinforced how crucial senior sponsorship is for progress of the agenda.
The WiHTL and DiR Summit highlighted the ongoing enthusiasm for creating inclusive and diverse workplaces within the hospitality, travel, leisure and retail sectors, and the breadth of so many insightful speakers who were able to both shine a light on the positive steps that are being taken, but also and perhaps more importantly, highlight what needs to be done to keep turning the dial in the right direction, is truly inspiring. With so many topics covered, what was clear is that momentum is not slowing, but, for now, there is still plenty of work to be done to reach the true inclusion we are all striving towards in our sectors.
