Leaders in EDI – The Creative Industry & Public Service (with Blue Moon’s Joanna Abeyie)

Leaders in EDI shines a light on the progress being made and the challenges being faced in the equity, diversity and inclusion space across sport and neighbouring industries. This season of the Leaders in EDI podcast series features perspectives from outside of the sports industry to develop a more holistic view of the EDI sector, to discuss what specific challenges other industries face, and to understand what we can learn from how they tackle them.

Joanna Abeyie is a journalist, broadcaster and social impact entrepreneur who has spent the last 15 years committed to the EDI sector. She is Founder and MD of Blue Moon and Partners, an organisation designed to find the best talent for business and create inclusive environments for employees to thrive and drive business success. She is also Co-Secretariat at Creative Diversity APPG, a cross-party group in UK Parliament to identify and tackle obstacles to diversity in the creative sector, and acts as Commissioner at Civil Service Commission UK and Common Councillor at City of London. She recently stepped down as Head of Creative Diversity at the BBC, where she was tasked with ensuring on-air diversity and inclusions strategies across the broadcaster. 

The wide-ranging conversation, beginning at 3:05, includes insights into facilitating communication with and between production companies and commissioners, avoidance of stereotypes, and the current lack of socioeconomic inclusion in the creative industry - as well as talk around the best ways to implement EDI strategies, reliability of data (or lack thereof) and what more sport can do to mobilise against discrimination.