Cordia Blackswan New Projects Director Marika Lawrence reflects on diversity and inclusion within the industry
During our recent round table hosted by Cundall, business leaders and development directors from across the city joined us alongside our Building Brum partners Careys to answer the question: How do we efficiently build a more inclusive, Birmingham, making it renowned as the great place to work in the industry?‘ Cordia Blackswan New Projects Director Marika Lawence joined us alongside HBD, ADP Architecture and Birmingham City Council to look at how we can do to answer this question and look to the future.
Cordia Blackswan New Projects Director Marika Lawence: “It was a fascinating discussion, which opened up a very honest arena in relation to everyone’s experience and aspirations on diversity and inclusion within the industry. It’s such an important topic, and no surprise it overtook all other areas of discussion. At Cordia Blackswan, we pride ourselves in having not only more than a 50:50 female to male staff ratio, but a significant number in senior hires, including 25% female SLT (me!). Our ethnic diversity is also clearly notable. As a staff, everyone’s engagement is welcomed and valued. Staff are truly engaged with at CBS, everyone has something to contribute, not only in their defined and integral part of the development process, but for example, we recently led a whole-team design and brand workshop in relation to one of our projects that we are close to tendering for. Some might find it unusual that everyone gets an opportunity to contribute and share their thoughts and opinions on how we should take direction on aspects of the process, even though it not our direct role. However, any one of us could be an occupier in one of our developments, so we all bring something to the table, and our diversity whether it be age, sexual orientation, ethnicity or gender, allows a real cross-section of individuals to really think about the places we want to live in and how they should take shape.
The culture at CBS is also one of giving back. One example of how we started giving back to our city was engaging with art and photography students from South & City College, who photographed our home patch in the Jewellery Quarter along Great Hampton Street, as we steadily bring back to life some forgotten buildings of yesteryear in our endeavour to make Great Hampton Street great again. We look forward to seeing the results of this project come to light when we can display the work on the hoardings of our Lamp Works site, on Great Hampton Street, near our office HQ, which we are well away with restoring to its former yet reinvented glory (watch this space as more exciting things unfold at the Bank!).
We have and continue to support several other organisations (Spring Housing, BFriends for Birmingham Children’s Trust, Land Aid, Ukraine GAiN (Global Aid Network) where we have raised money to support homelessness, organised Christmas packages and have collected clothing, bedding and personal items to support the needs of Ukrainian refugees. We have also provided space in one of our buildings to allow GAiN to organise distribution to the Ukraine. The generosity of people in the city is incredibly humbling and makes me proud to be a Brummie. Whilst these examples signify the start of our journey, and working with local charities and communities will continue to be at the heart of what we do, we also have a keen eye on pushing forward our socially responsible ethos as we make careful and considered decisions in relation to our developments, for example delivering affordable housing, reducing carbon, considering and implementing strategies to reduce our environmental impact and striving to use innovative methods in construction wherever we can, to mention just a few ways in which want to do better as a company, create sustainable places to live, which makes for a great place to work.
