But has the message landed in any sense outside of the profession?

The best HR functions are absolutely seen as the designers of organisational performance.

So what I mean by that, at our best, we understand the business or the service or the third sector organisation and its activity better.

We understand that better as well as anybody else in the business.

And so we understand the business model.

We understand the market.

We understand how the product or service is developed, delivered, where the value is added.

for organisational performance and success.

So

I'm not dismissing protected characteristic because I think actually some perspectives are different.

But interestingly, even there, I think sometimes we muddle up We have a QED, therefore diverse perspective, where actually the bit of diversity in particularly, I think, in British business and organization life that is less considered and far more likely to bring diverse perspective is social mobility.

So I've always seen this from a social mobility perspective.

You can get people of all sorts of backgrounds around the table, and if we've all had a broadly similar education and a similar experience, the chances are we'll have a relatively similar perspective.

It's the not similar experience and not similar background and not similar educational outcome which bring I think, debate and exploration.

And I spent seven years before doing the jobs I do now, very proudly being the first non-lawyer to lead the most socially diverse group of lawyers in the UK, Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, who are 76% women, 20% from non-white ethnic minority backgrounds, 60% who don't go to university, all of whom learned and earned on the job.

But