Bentley sharpens its focus on diversity
The luxury car manufacturer is plotting a course to greater inclusion.
Our good friends over at Bentley are further demonstrating their commitment to Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) with a greater focus that has come through a recent restructure.
The luxury car brand – a headline sponsor for Attitude 101 among other happenings – has time and again welcomed the LGBTQ community and proven its commitment with an ethos of a rich and diverse culture.
The company’s restructuring sees the ideas of D&I embedded at the heart of the organisation, thanks to the creation of a brand new team.
Wayne Bruce, a longstanding friend and supporter of Attitude, has been named Chief Communications and D&I Officer. He adds yet another feather to his cap with Bentley’s D&I strategy that will support all strands of diversity.
Anne Hoerner, the Head of D&I, will work with Wayne to implement Bentley’s five-pillar strategy across the organisation. Stefanie Lackner, the Head of Sustainability Communications, rounds out the new team and will continue to lead D&I communications inside and outside Bentley.
This brand spanking new team will help glide Bentley forward under the joint leadership of Chairman and CEO Adrian Hallmark and Dr. Karen Lange, the Board Member for Human Resources.
The car manufacturer’s strategy is focused on outreach, recruitment, succession planning, culture, and development. Key to this, is Bentley’s five diversity networks with a total number of 500 colleagues, accounting for 10% of the workforce.
Not content to leave things there, Bentley has also set a target of increasing the diversity of its management to 30% in 2025. A roadmap is being established to help move the company towards this goal.
Commenting on the announcement Hallmark has said: “We know that diversity drives success and by bringing a greater range of experience, creativity as well as inclusion, allows co-operation to play a key role in business strategy, innovation and decision-making. We firmly believe that it is a fundamental part of the business and therefore should be a core function that touches every single area of the organisation.”
Paying tribute to his newly assembled team, Hallmark added “We are confident of achieving our aim of becoming the most diverse luxury car manufacturer in the world.”
Bentley is not only seeking to be a trailblazer in diversity. It’s also got its eyes set on breaking boundaries in sustainability.
The Beyond100 strategy announced in 2020 laid out the company’s plans to get there.
To that end, Bentley has so far become the first automotive company to declare an aim to be completely carbon neutral by 2030. It has also introduced plug-in electric luxury cars before anyone else, as well as having the only luxury car factory in the world to be certified carbon neutral for the fourth year in a row. On top of those sustainable credentials, Bentley was the first to secure net zero plastic to nature certification.