In a move marking the first of its kind in the UK, the merged organisation will run as a charity and cover all nine protected characteristics in The Equality Act 2010.
It will offer a service that both approaches equality and inclusion from multiple perspectives, and focuses on cross-cutting themes, specifically unconscious bias. ENEI will also enable small organisations and those without equality and inclusion expertise to deal with any issues.
Denise Keating, CEO of the EFA, will become CEO of the ENEI. Dan Robertson, who has 12 years’ experience of project managing diversity and culture change programmes and most recently worked as a client consultant at Equality Works, has been recruited as diversity and inclusion director. Amir Kabel recently joined as head of business development. Most recently he worked as a diversity manager for the NHS.
Keating said: “In consultation with existing EFA and EFB members, we identified a need for a more integrated and proactive approach to equality and inclusion across the employee lifecycle. This provides an opportunity to engage further with employers on the whole spectrum of workplace inclusion issues.
“Post launch, ENEI will be the only not for profit UK wide entity, supporting businesses on all issues related to equality and inclusion best practice. As a cutting edge charitable organisation, we will also provide our members with access to our research and campaigning arm, which has proved to be extremely successful in the current model."
