Sara Bell
Principal Consultant, Equity Diversity & Inclusion, Leadership
Sara has 18 years’ experience working in specialist People roles in large organisations, most recently as the Head of Talent, Equity Inclusion and Diversity and Development. She is passionate about designing organisations that are structurally inclusive, an approach informed both by behavioural science and a unique background in Talent Management, Organisation Design and Development as well as Change Management Consulting.
Sara was born in Sweden to Finnish parents and moved to the UK to study Behaviour in Organisations. A red thread throughout her career has been understanding and changing individual and collective behaviour. From her time delivering Accenture change programmes to working with and coaching senior female leaders in Vodafone, she has experience in unlocking inclusive cultures that allow unique leaders to thrive.
In addition to her business roles in shaping HR processes and policies, Sara has actively listened to employee voices in over 30 employee networks and understands how to connect the two in a productive and business transformative relationship. She believes real change happens when leaders understand the business case for EDI, and when they create a strategy that takes everyone along with them on the journey to inclusion, equity and belonging.
Outside of work, Sara likes to practice yoga, walk in woodlands and eat cake. She recognises that her lived experience of four intersecting marginalised identities means she often looks at the world differently, and this can be her super-power. She loves working with leaders who are brave in exploring human centred leadership, and she is experienced in holding safe space for employees to explore and process what is needed to allow each person to create a career driven by their personal purpose.
Sara has expertise in:
- Developing inclusion, diversity, equity and belonging strategies that make a difference to the specific culture of the unique organisation
- Managing and de-biasing talent management processes; having re-designed performance management, recruitment, career development / promotion and succession processes in a number of organisations
- Diagnosing diversity gaps and barriers and designing interventions to demonstrably reduce these to ensure under-represented talent progress and flourish, authentically
- Designing and managing randomised controlled trials and applying behavioural science insights to make workplaces more inclusive, creating greater belonging for everyone
- Passionately facilitating workshops, trainings and experiences that create AHA moments and move participants to take action to create inclusion for others
- Optimising effectiveness of employee resource groups, inclusion networks and councils, coaching the leads to make these groups business change driving
- Management consulting and organisation design – combining strategic and systems thinking to create innovative solutions that move the needle
- Creating change in complex, multi-cultural and regulated environments, across a number of industries
- Lifelong learning, currently studying at the London School of Economics
