ITV signs up to Valuable 500’s leadership programme for disabled talent

ITV has today signed up to join the first cohort of employers taking part in Valuable500’s GenerationValuable alongside Channel 4, Clifford Chance, EY, Enel, ISS/AS and Telefónica.

Generation Valuable –  the leadership up mentoring programme for Disabled people – will see each participant paired with a mentor at an executive level within their organisation.

The leadership programme is designed to drive disability inclusion with the aim of getting companies to build a community of disabled talent who can share their experiences and inform leaders about how to make businesses more inclusive.

The first cohort of 75 will be announced on International Day for Persons with Disabilities in December.

ITV continues to promote an inclusive and diverse workplace, the broadcaster recently launched its Diversity Commissioning Fund which ring-fences £80m of the content budget spend over the next three years to drive change in disability equity and equity for people of colour, recorded a 19 per cent improvement of perception from our Disabled audiences in the last two years and began a roll-out of Disability Access Passports. 

The Disability Access Passports are confidential documents and support conversations with line managers to ensure d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse colleagues get the support they need at work and provides non-disabled colleagues with a framework to enable confident conversations about disability, access and adjustments. The passports are transferable across departments and between broadcasters.

The passports are embedded into the recruitment, onboarding and performance review to ensure d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse colleagues have a number of opportunities to discuss their needs and adjustments with their line manager. Disability inclusion training is also being rolled out to support line managers in this process and embedding disability inclusion into the business.

Carolyn McCall: “ITV is excited to be a part of the inaugural Valuable500 Generation Valuable programme. Employers cannot ignore the striking underrepresentation of d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse people in their workforce, and we at ITV are committed to taking steps across multiple fronts to ensure our culture is inclusive, attractive and accessible to the best talent out there. Senior leaders play an important role in culture, so leadership programmes such as this can have powerful ripple effects.” 

Caroline Casey, Founder, the Valuable 500, commented: "This initiative proves that there is an array of disabled talent within businesses, and that they are more than capable of occupying positions of power and leadership. Enabling disabled talent to flourish and reach their full potential by shattering glass ceilings is a game changer. The Valuable 500 is striving to radically change the awful results of research conducted by Tortoise Media that found that 'no FTSE company had a senior leader or above who identified as having a disability.”

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Notes to Editors

About the Valuable 500 

The Valuable 500 was launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2019. Today the Valuable 500 is the largest community of Global CEOs committed to disability inclusion in business.

Since its creation, the Valuable 500 has achieved its initial goal of getting 500 multinational organisations to make a public commitment to disability inclusion in their organisation, igniting a historic global movement for a new age of diversity in business. The Valuable 500 and their global impact partner The Nippon Foundation, will be working closely with the World Economic Forum and International Disability Alliance – bringing together a leading philanthropic organisation with the most prestigious global business network and the voice of the global disability community.

By engaging with the world’s most influential business leaders and brands, the network now has a market cap of over $23 trillion, combined revenues of over $8 trillion and employs a staggering 22 million people worldwide. Its members include 15 global CEOs and companies who will be spearheading the programmes and services to be offered under Phase 2 of the transformation programme.

The Valuable 500 is determined to create a community that supports and empowers its 500 members to systematically transform their businesses, so they include the 1.3 billion people living with disabilities worldwide, thereby unlocking their business, social and economic potential.

We believe that if business takes a lead, society and government will follow. Truly inclusive businesses can build truly inclusive societies.