Dr. Heather Melville OBE
The Visionary
The future, and what is barely possible, reads round the next corner.
Dr. Heather Melville OBE is a British banker, financial-services leader and civic figure with a four-decade career across finance, technology and professional services. She is currently a Partner at Stork & May, Chancellor of the University of York (nearly four years in post), founder of Nebula (a network for Black women two years away from C-suite), Patron of Women in Banking and Finance, and a judge for the Powerlist Awards. She received an OBE in 2017 for services to women and diversity in business, nominated by her own bank's clients, and in January was awarded a Fellowship of the Chartered Banker Institute, the first Black person to receive that honour. She has been named among the UK's 100 most influential Black Britons. Her banking, technology and professional-services roles have spanned IBM, PwC and NatWest.
“I want people to stop talking about diversity because when they just put it into a little box and no one thinks they need to do anything. I want people to really talk about a sense of belonging. What does it feel like to work in this organization?”
“Great leaders think about: access to all of the talent, reputation, and commercial sense. Those three things are all wrapped in that word inclusion. They're not about diversity — they're about good business practice.”
“In 10 or 20 years' time, if the young people I mentor tell me they've had a great career, been treated fairly, and been able to bring somebody else up with them — that's what legacy looks like.”
Belonging as a growth asset — The Next Agenda
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