René Carayol
René Carayol is known to many as a business guru. He has extensive business experience at board level, and a wealth of knowledge about many aspects of business including the issue of supplier diversity.
INTERVIEW 45
René Carayol
René Carayol is known to many as a business guru. He has extensive business experience at board level, and a wealth of knowledge about many aspects of business including the issue of supplier diversity.
A former Non – Executive Director of The Inland Revenue and a former Director of IPC Media, René has provided leadership support to the Prime Minister’ s Delivery Unit and McKinsey and Co and is now an accomplished Visiting Professor at CASS Business School.
In 2004 he was awarded an MBE for outstanding service to the business community.
A constant traveller going from country to country delivering business presentations and speeches, René took time out to tell Engage’ s Colette Machado his views on the present situation of ethnic minority businesses in the UK and what he thinks of the UK’ s focus on supplier diversity.
QSo, René, earlier this year when The Rich List 2006 came out it contained very few black people. However, we all know that black people are very much setting up and going into business as much as and perhaps in comparison even more so than their white counterparts. However, as a result of this, where exactly do you see the next generation of black entrepreneurs coming from?
AHaving been involved in the BBC’ s‘ Mind of a Millionaire’ series the results of their survey of the 70,000 self made millionaires in the UK was quite revealing. 49 % of the self – made millionaires are dyslexic and 59 % come from deprived or dysfunctional backgrounds! There is no racial monopoly on dyslexia or poverty! But given there are 60 million people in the UK 70,000 is a very small percentage of the total population and although the number of ethnic minority self – made millionaires is also small it is probably in proportion to their make – up of the population.
In other words to be blunt about it if one of the major fuels for becoming a successful entrepreneur is having had it tough throughout your childhood, the ethnic minorities in the UK are in very good shape! Again, we need to be careful though about using race as a measure but there are huge examples of self – made entrepreneurs of every race and there is opportunity for all. But remember it is very hard to choose to become a successful entrepreneur, in order for some to succeed many have to fail and in my experience it’ s less about race and more about being able to overcome barriers and sometimes impossible odds!
QIn terms of procurement, what do you think small and medium – sized ethnic minority businesses need to do to ensure they are in a position to compete for tenders alongside larger businesses?
AThere is only one route for any business, become bigger and better. It is an exceedingly tough world out there and in order to better connect and understand how to win, we all need to bring some experienced players onto our Boards of Directors. In order to get the appropriate experience and expertise it is vital that we embrace those that can do it, not necessarily those of the same skin colour!
In your opinion can the
Q UK ever be on the same level as the US when it comes to supplier diversity?
AComparisons with the
UK are not really relevant here. The US marketplace is huge compared to the UK, and their minority businesses have been around for a lot longer than any of the UK based
ISSUE TWO 2006 engage