We are building an inclusive culture where everyone is valued for who they are and what they bring.

Our Diversity and Inclusion framework guides the action we are taking over 2021-22. The framework reflects our most important priority areas.

Targets help us ensure our actions are making a difference and drive transparency and accountability for progress.

Our targets

We achieved our first gender targets for representation of women at Board and senior leadership in 2020 (both targets were 33%), and built on this progress with new targets from January 2021, including an ethnicity target for the first time.

Our targets for 2025 are:

Position at 21 June 2021 2025 Target
Gender PLC Board 45% women 40% women | 40% men | 20% any gender
 Gender Senior leadership 36% women 40% women | 40% men | 20% any gender
Gender  Global workforce 46% women 50% women (+/-3%)
Ethnicity PLC Board 9% ethnic minority 18% (or +1 director) ethnic minority

We have structured our 2025 targets in this way for a number of reasons:

  • To line up with our external engagement approach and voting standards
  • To ensure we maintain our policy of always appointing best person for role.
  • To recognise that gender is not limited to male and female identities.
  • The Sir John Parker Review (2017) recommended all FTSE 100 companies to have at least one director of colour by 2021. Since 2019 we have met this recommendation and have set our target for an additional director by 2025.

What we say has to be what we do. At abrdn we continue to set high standards for ourselves, and we expect others to do the same. We’ve made good progress, but there is more to do – and we’re focused on increasing momentum for everyone who counts on us to build better, more inclusive futures.

You can find more information about our diversity targets in our Diversity and Inclusion Report.