‘A scary underrepresentation of black talent’: MOBOs founder Kanya King launches new platform aiming to diversify the business world

The MOBOs founder is taking on her next challenge - diversifying the business world.

Mobolise is a new digital platform aiming to tackle what Kanya King describes as a “scary underrepresentation of black talent" across influential industries.

Launched in time to coincide with the return of the star-studded music awards after a two-year break, Mobolise will put its team’s 25 years of knowledge and experience into an initiative aiming to “truly be a game-changer” for black people of all ages in the UK.

Individuals and companies will both be able to sign up to the platform, developed in conjunction with Accenture, and then connect for top opportunities, mentoring and networking.

King told the Standard that Mobilise’s focus will initially be on the creative and tech sectors as that is where the team has most experience, but that the aim is to work with “forward-thinking companies”, and that should span  finance, law and other sectors.

Research released by responsible business group, Business In The Community, earlier this year found that just 1.5% of managers, directors and senior officials in the UK private sector are black. A major report published in February found 37 FTSE 100 firms had no black or ethnic-minority directors.

King said:  "It is not acceptable to see the level of underrepresentation of black talent in the tech and creative sectors, when we are talking about industries that are shaping the world.

“I believe MOBOLISE is the next evolution of the successes we have achieved over the years. We have championed and empowered new talent within the music industry. In recent years our work has also driven change within film, theatre and the media. This is a way of expanding that into the wider business world.

“We felt a platform like this could help accelerate people's careers.”

The founder, who said the response from big business so far has been “amazing and heartening”, explained why the business case for diversity is absolute, as it gives companies a competitive market advantage over rivals.

She said: “There are fantastic stats out there showing how more diverse companies are going to be more innovative, it is just great for the bottom line. Forget about the moral imperative, from a business point of view, if you want to increase shareholder value it's just paramount [to increase diversity] really.”

Emeli Sandé is among A-Listers backing the initiative.

She said: "I definitely feel that we need more representation within executive roles. “It still is completely disproportionate – even more so now that you have so much black music in the charts – and still I can count on one hand how many executives I know.