We support the Bristol Stepping Up programme which aims to get more people from BAME backgrounds into senior leadership roles across Bristol.

The programme was launched by Bristol's Mayor, Marvin Rees, who is the first Mayor of a European city of Black African-Caribbean descent. On setting up the programme, he said 'You face a choice as an organisation, you begin to access diversity of thought or you get left behind.'

Twelve senior leaders from Osborne Clarke have acted as mentors to participants and we have provided stretch work assignments for the mentees. The programme began in 2018. Of the participants in the first cohort, 80% went on to get promotions, 20% applied to become magistrates with two of them succeeding and 100% reported they had grown in confidence.

The programme is being repeated this year and has been broadened to include women and people with a disability, with ten senior level mentors from Osborne Clarke.

(Pictured: Professor Christine Bamford Programme Director, Stepping Up; Ray Berg Managing Partner, Osborne Clarke; Baroness McGregor-Smith CBE; Christina Quinn, Southwest NHS Leadership Academy; Cllr Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor, Bristol City Council; Su Akgun Diversity and Wellbeing Manager, Osborne Clarke; and Marvin Rees Mayor, Bristol City Council.)