Sarah Churchman OBE

Sarah is a senior HR professional with over 25 years experience in diversity, equity and inclusion and is one of the countrys leading practitioners in this field. Sarah operated ahead of the curve, pioneering the work that is now seen as essential to the D&I Professional's portfolio. She worked with PwCs LGBTQ+ network in 2003 to ensure equality in benefits provision for staff with same sex partners. In 2005 she experimented with unconscious bias awareness training developing an award winning product. (She still believes this work is foundational to truly inclusive leadership.) She identified the link between diversity and talent management as an obvious mechanism for target setting in 2011. In 2013 she established an award winning sponsorship programme and, under her leadership, PwC was the fifth private sector organisation in the UK to publish their gender pay gap in 2014 before the regulations came into force. She was instrumental in PwC signing Business in the Communitys (BITC) Race at Work Charter and publishing their ethnicity pay gap since 2017. Sarah led PwC to number one in the Social Mobility Employers Index in 2019 and 2020. In November 2021 she also became the Global Inclusion & Diversity Leader for the PwC Network of more than 300,000 employees.

Sarah was also responsible for developing the Wellbeing Strategy for PwC UK in 2015, proactively taking steps to deliver a wellbeing promoting working environment. This prioritised mental health to compliment all other aspects of the employee health and wellbeing agenda. Early initiatives such as the Green Light to Talk campaign went on to be adopted widely by other employers and PwC remains one of only a handful of employers to achieve Health Creating Accreditation by the City Mental Health Alliance Thriving at Work assessment.

Sarah was awarded an OBE in the 2018 New Years Honours List for services to women in business, equality and diversity. She retired from corporate life at the end of 2023 and her current portfolio comprises consulting, being a Charity Trustee and recently being appointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Board of the RAC Club.

 NED, Trustee, Award-winning Workplace Culture & Wellbeing Leader and former Chief Inclusion, Culture & Wellbeing Officer, PwC,