Ethnic minority women are under-represented in positions of power and senior decision-making authority. This is true across the public, private and voluntary sectors, as well as in politics. Our job was to understand better why ethnic minority women are so under-represented in positions of power by exploring the experiences of ethnic minority women who have succeeded in making their ways to the top.

The brief was wide-ranging. It covered:

• The motivations behind senior ethnic minority women’s achievements
• The professional trajectories they followed
• The barriers and challenges they met along the way
• The strategies they employed to overcome and handle these
• The added value they bring to organisations
• How support the career progression of more ethnic minority women