Statement from the Chairman of the Charity, Lord Michael Hastings CBE

Any organisation intent on fighting racial injustice must be a beacon of positive permanence willing to take up the battle for significant ideas and to invest in their manifestation. I am honoured to serve as the founding Chair of the Charity of the Black British Initiative with exactly that positive permanence in its practical mission to resource educational mobility and its strategy to create genuine advance through skills development for black led start-ups. The BBI will work to corral the investment, social and cultural commitments needed to bring a marked change in the visible potential of todays educated, compassionate and imaginative black developers, thinkers, teachers, bankers, scientists, artists, engineers and health professionals and those who have had no way up or way forward to date. The BBI is here for them …all of them…to embed in practise and in policy what equity and opportunity looks like. It has taken a harsh set of violent incidents to pivot the will of many towards the disparities of the marginalised. Let the character of all good people come to the fore and let us seal in this foundation, the hope, the heart and the will that justice requires.

Lord Dr Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE

HOUSE of LORDS, Westminster, London SW1A 0PW

Chancellor, Regent’s University London

Professor of Leadership, Stephen R Covey Leadership Centre

Huntsman Business School, Utah State University