Leadership 2025 are thrilled to announce our new Chair of the Board of Trustees, Tolu Oke.
Tolu brings a wealth of experience and insight to the role and currently works at Diageo as Global Head of Inclusion and Diversity. Tolu has led important Inclusion and Diversity work nationwide and across sectors since 2016.
This also means we are saying farewell to our outgoing Chair, Olu Olanrewaju. Olu was integral in the inception of Leadership 2025 and its development into a programme, a movement and a charity. Olu has also been fundamental in the establishment and progression of Leadership 2025 and has served as its Chair since it became a charity in 2021. We wish Olu all the best in his new ventures and would like to thank him for his invaluable work and contribution to Leadership 2025 and the sector.
The year 2025 represents both our name and what had been a target for achieving an ethnically diverse, inclusive and representative housing leadership. It is now also a reminder that this change is long overdue and that we remain committed to affecting the sector-wide cultural transformation that is so needed. The year ahead will see us share and disseminate important findings and recommendations from our research with LSE and an updated and sixth iteration of the Leadership 2025 programme. Tolu and the team will continue to create and sustain meaningful collaborations, partnerships and conversations beyond the capital and across the sector.
Tolu is thrilled to be joining Leadership 2025 because she is passionate about the vision and mission of the organisation. She is looking forward to playing her part in helping to diversify the sector’s leadership and improving equity for all.
Tolu joins us as a multi-award-winning thought leader, whose passion is inclusion, diversity and equity. Tolu is skilled in shifting cultures and has made significant impact across various industries. She has led large scale national Diversity and Inclusion programmes across the charity sector, UK construction industry, higher education, retail, tech and FMCG. Tolu also led the Fairness, Inclusion & Respect Programme for the UK construction industry, supporting companies on their inclusive journeys. In 2019, Tolu launched the first ever Black History Month customer facing retail campaign at Sainsburys to over 24 million customers. In 2020, Tolu joined Amazon Web Services (AWS) to lead Diversity and Inclusion programmes and launched Amazon’s first Autism at Work Programme. Tolu co-launched the first AWS tech skills summer camp in Ghana to 100+ youths and supported scaling and investment into a language translation app, Tarjimly, for refugees and displaced people globally. In 2023, she became the Global Head of Inclusion & Diversity at Diageo, delivering a progressive Diversity and Inclusion ambition for colleagues, customers and consumers worldwide.
In her personal time, Tolu coaches early careers professionals to help them understand the unwritten rules of the workplace and supports senior and executive teams to lead their businesses inclusively. Tolu runs an organisation delivering programmes providing food, solar lights, clean water and sponsoring children internationally.