My family experiences shape diversity approach at Ofgem

Ahead of the annual Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Energy Conference Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley draws on his own personal experiences to highlight why a diverse workforce is essential to meet the “unprecedented challenges” faced by the sector.

On Thursday (29 June), we at Ofgem are holding the annual Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Energy Conference, with Energy UK and the ENA, focused on improving EDI across the sector.

In the midst of huge priorities for Ofgem, I have always made it clear that diversity, particularly of our leadership, is fundamental to the success of the energy sector. The business reasons for this are well rehearsed, so I thought I would offer a personal perspective.

On the face of it, I pretty much fit the stereotype of leadership in the energy sector and government. I am white, middle class, middle aged, able bodied and Oxbridge educated. However, my personal circumstances mean that I have seen directly how the world can look for those who don’t share these characteristics. 

I am in a mixed-race family with its own complexity. My wife, Sumita, is British Indian and my children, born through fertility treatment, have a mixed genetic inheritance that ranges from India through to Ukraine.

We live rurally and I love where we live. It is beautiful, green, open and friendly. However, it is not as diverse as Britian’s cities. We have great friends there, but there are times when we feel the difference. Walking into a room where we are the only non-white family is uncomfortable. Poor behaviours and seemingly minor comments can make this worse. This is felt less by me than by my family and, if I am honest, there are many times when I have dismissed or not sufficiently understood the impact this has had.

Equally, I have had enough reverse mentors to know that offhand comments and poor behaviours exist across the energy sector, including in Ofgem. The end result has meant that those affected stop socialising and ultimately leave taking their considerable talent elsewhere.

Last year we had news no parent ever wants to hear. We discovered that our youngest boy, Dilhan, had a rare tumour behind his eye. There is not enough space to describe what we went through, but we eventually made the difficult decision to remove his eye and now he lives with a prosthetic in its place. Overall, he is fine and now causing plenty of good honest trouble. But for him, and for us, the world looks different. For example, now we, can see that virtually all children’s characters with one eye are daft, deranged or plain bad. I find myself wondering how the world feels to him now and what he will face as he grows up.

I am deeply proud of the whole of Ofgem, including the board and the senior team, for adapting to allow me to focus on home when I needed to, even in the midst of a national energy crisis. I know that we try to do the same across the organisation. For example, new parents returning to work, those who need to care for family members or those struggling with their own health conditions. The reason we do is the same. If we don’t, we will lose some of our best people, and with this, the diversity of thought and talent required to meet the unprecedented challenges we face and will continue to face. Covid has taught us that taken for granted assumptions and their impact on minorities and the most vulnerable have lasting unwanted consequences.

As we approach the fourth EDI in Energy Conference, and we celebrate some success, we need to acknowledge that the industry, including its regulator, have a long way to go. No major organisation can fully represent the people they serve through its leadership but without a diverse set of backgrounds it is much harder than ever to do so. Equally, if we don’t change and adapt to the background and personal life of those who work in the sector we will lose some of our best talent – at a time when the sector needs it the most.