The onus shouldn’t be on the Black community to improve diversity, says BYP Network CEO

Kike Oni­winde found­ed the BYP Net­work as an anti­dote to some of the dis­heart­en­ing real­i­ties that Black pro­fes­sion­als face, every day.

Whether it’s the fact that 25% of Black work­ers earn below the real liv­ing wage (com­pared with 20% of white British work­ers) or that Britons of Niger­ian descent must sub­mit 80% more job appli­ca­tions than their white coun­ter­parts before receiv­ing a suc­cess­ful response, Oni­winde felt that the “neg­a­tive news need­ed to change”.  

“I realised that my view, and that of many oth­er peo­ple, was that suc­cess­ful Black peo­ple are either musi­cians or ath­letes,” she says. “If you enter the world of work and don’t see any oth­er Black peo­ple there, it reaf­firms the idea that the only routes to suc­cess are through enter­tain­ment and sports.”

Often described as ’LinkedIn for Black pro­fes­sion­als’, the BYP Net­work is a plat­form that helps Black pro­fes­sion­als to sup­port one anoth­er through­out their careers and to con­nect with glob­al com­pa­nies.

Oni­winde set up the com­pa­ny in 2016 and explains how the idea for the busi­ness was a result of her expe­ri­ence work­ing as an intern in invest­ment bank­ing. “I felt very uncom­fort­able but I could­n’t pin­point why,” she says. Then she noticed that “there weren’t many peo­ple there that looked like me”.

“I didn’t see oth­er Black peo­ple in bank­ing and finance,” Oni­winde con­tin­ues.“So where were we? I felt we need­ed to find each oth­er.” 

Since launch­ing the plat­form, BYP Net­work has grown to 150,000 mem­bers and 1,000 cor­po­rate part­ners. “It start­ed as a way to find oth­er Black pro­fes­sion­als,” Oni­winde says. “I saw a prob­lem that need­ed to be solved and it grew from there.”

Creating opportunities for Black leaders

Even with a new­born baby, Oni­winde con­tin­ues to grow her busi­ness. The entre­pre­neur took just six weeks of mater­ni­ty leave before return­ing to work part-time – her moth­er-in-law’s help with child­care, she says, has been invalu­able.

Despite the suc­cess of the plat­form and the inter­est it has attract­ed from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, Oni­winde wants more peo­ple to recog­nise that change can­not come from a sin­gle source.

“We shouldn’t put the onus on the Black com­mu­ni­ty. We need as much help as pos­si­ble from allies, from com­pa­nies, from gov­ern­ments, so that we can make sure that peo­ple get the oppor­tu­ni­ties that they deserve,” she says.

Although con­fi­dent that things have been mov­ing in the right direc­tion in the six years that she’s been work­ing in this area, Oni­winde does wor­ry that “com­pa­nies could eas­i­ly decide that Black pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment isn’t a pri­or­i­ty any­more. We still have a very long way to go,” she says.

This is evi­denced by the lack of Black rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the top of busi­ness. Although the lat­est Park­er Review report shows that 89% of FTSE 100 com­pa­nies have now met its tar­get of one direc­tor from an eth­nic minor­i­ty appoint­ed to the board, Green Park’s 2021 Busi­ness Lead­ers Index found that no Black lead­ers held C‑suite posi­tions.

Com­ment­ing on the fact there are no FTSE 100 CEOs, Oni­winde says: “We need Black lead­ers. We need more trail­blaz­ers because there aren’t that many peo­ple to look up to. You might have to be the per­son who has to break that glass ceil­ing.”

In her view, get­ting more Black peo­ple in lead­er­ship posi­tions requires two things. It needs com­pa­nies to recog­nise the impor­tance of diver­si­ty of thought and inclu­sion. And it needs busi­ness­es to pro­mote from with­in to give more Black peo­ple the oppor­tu­ni­ties to lead.

Why racism in the UK is more ‘covert’

It can be eas­i­er for some peo­ple to find these oppor­tu­ni­ties in the US, rather than the UK, accord­ing to Oni­winde. She has observed that atti­tudes towards race, in her expe­ri­ence, are dif­fer­ent on the oth­er side of the Atlantic. 

“What stood out to me was the Black peo­ple I met and the dif­fer­ent fields they were in,” Oni­winde says. “Despite the issues of race rela­tions with the police, there is a sig­nif­i­cant Black upper class in the US. I’ve seen Black busi­ness peo­ple leave the UK to look for oppor­tu­ni­ties in the US because they think their prospects are bet­ter over there.”

She describes the racism she’s expe­ri­enced in the UK as being more ”covert” – it isn’t always clear from indi­vid­ual inter­ac­tions but it may rear its head by way of a reject­ed job appli­ca­tion or being over­looked for a pro­mo­tion.

“There is sys­temic injus­tice in the UK and Black peo­ple face these prob­lems from a young age, whether it’s not get­ting the right grades because of a lack of sup­port or being less like­ly to get a job offer,” Oni­winde adds. “It is entrenched through­out the jour­ney from school to employ­ment.”

Inclu­sion is also an impor­tant fac­tor. Once more Black lead­ers are in lead­er­ship posi­tions, Oni­winde wants to see them sup­port oth­ers to get to the same lev­el. She says: “We want peo­ple to help oth­ers through the door, not pull up the lad­der behind them. For that to hap­pen, peo­ple need to stop hav­ing to sell their souls.”

She explains: “Some­times to get a pro­mo­tion you might have to behave dif­fer­ent­ly or take up inter­ests you wouldn’t nor­mal­ly, in order to fit in. That might get you the pro­mo­tion – but it takes you away from the grass­roots you need to be con­nect­ed to.”

Oni­winde believes that BYP Network’s upcom­ing Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence, which takes place in Lon­don, 6–7 Octo­ber, is one way to rem­e­dy this. She claims that pre­vi­ous atten­dees have secured jobs, found men­tors and gained the con­fi­dence to make the next step up in their careers as a result of the event. 

“We’re always so busy that it’s some­times hard to notice the impact it has,” Oni­winde says. “But when you hear people’s sto­ries, that’s what makes me hap­py.”