Welcome to psd’s Board Practice InFocus. Whilst many of our InFocus publications draw together a fairly eclectic selection of articles, this edition is very definitely themed around Diversity.

Diversity, Inclusion and Unconscious Bias represent big challenges for organisations of all sizes across all sectors. There is of course general acceptance now of the very real value that genuine diversity and inclusion brings to organisations and, increasingly there is recognition of the challenges faced when trying to achieve it. However, there is still a great deal of uncertainty and indeed disagreement about how to achieve it.

This publication pulls together an insightful and often very personal collection of views and experiences from academics, consultants and business leaders.

Jill Lucas, Group CIO for Towergate Insurance, shares her experience of leadership in a male dominated environment. Dr Esther Cavett offers a very personal reflection on over 20 years as a City banking lawyer and partner of a prestigious International law firm, and on her experience running the city mothers mentoring scheme. Dr Patricia Pryce, visiting fellow at Cranfield University is a specialist in the development of women leaders. Here she takes a close look at leadership styles and gender stereotyping. Nicola Morgan spent 15 years in top HR roles with the global bank UBS AG. Now running her own Leadership Transformation consultancy, Nicola challenges some of our perceptions about successful women. Harish Bhayani, founder and Senior Partner of PRM Diversity Consultants reminds us of the enormity and complexity of the diversity challenge, and offers some interesting ideas on how to manage diversity.

I hope that the pieces we have included will provoke response from some of our readers and that this in turn will inspire some interesting content for a subsequent publication.

I look forward to hearing from you, in the meantime my thanks as always to our illustrious contributors.