Interview: Channel 4’s Naomi Sesay on redefining diversity as equity in business

Naomi Sesay is a visionary Diversity & Inclusion speaker, currently serving as Head of Creative Equity at Channel 4. With over 25 years of experience in television and media, she has championed equity-driven storytelling and built a reputation as a trailblazer in inclusive leadership.

Her expertise extends beyond the screen: once a presenter and producer for MTV and Channel 4, she now inspires global audiences, having trained leaders at Google, Microsoft, Harvard, and NBC Universal. She also spearheads social innovation projects, including a pioneering, female-centric, sustainable smart city in Sierra Leone.

Film News Blitz presents this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency as Naomi offers an illuminating take on redefining diversity as equity, the value of mavericks in transforming organisations, and how to embed inclusive practices in creative industries—and beyond.

As Head of Creative Diversity at Channel 4, how do you approach ensuring authentic representation both on and off screen?

Naomi Sesay: “Well, it entails quite a lot actually. It’s about making sure offline, off-screen and on-screen, we have diversity in all of our productions, whether they’re on-screen talent or off-screen talent. 

“It’s also about making sure that all our suppliers and producers are complying with our new commissioning guidelines, which actually pushes the level of equity within our production content and allows on-screen and off-screen talent to be included in decision-making processes.

“So, my remit as Head of Creative Diversity for Channel 4 is making sure that all sectors — whether it’s our comms, our off-screen or on-screen talent, our events, or our commissioning guidelines — all have an equal amount of diversity in order to reflect the UK and to have inclusion practices.”

Diversity and inclusion are terms we hear often — how do you personally define them, and do you feel they need rethinking?

Naomi Sesay: “You know, the term diversity and inclusion I think is quite old now, because if you think about it, thought actually starts changing, dialogue starts changing, and the word diversity actually means all of us. So, it doesn’t make sense for diversity to just mean those who are ethnically diverse.

“I feel that the word diversity should actually come out of our comms now and be replaced by equity, because that is probably far more effective in terms of creating inclusion in the workplace.

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“I would define inclusion as feeling that you belong somewhere, feeling that you actually are included in decision-making processes, on-screen representation, off-screen representation, that you’re included in groups where you haven’t been included before. 

“For me, and in Channel 4, inclusion actually means the sense of belonging to a place where perhaps those protected characteristics haven’t been included before. So, let’s replace diversity with the word equity instead.”

Many successful businesses embrace so-called ‘mavericks’ — how do you define them, and why do you think they are vital for change?

Naomi Sesay: “Mavericks are essential to business because they are those geniuses that sit outside of the norm. I would also call them outliers — those who think completely differently to the majority of people, say, for example, in a team.

“Their thought process actually rattles the status quo, and because it rattles the status quo, it makes you feel uncomfortable. These outliers, or mavericks, are essential for change. 

“I would describe them as people who are a little bit off the wall, who actually have more inclusive thought processes and information that they themselves have looked into and incorporated into their own ideology of life, and then injected into a status quo.

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“What makes them mavericks or outliers is the fact that they don’t fit in. One of the practices to include those people who sit outside of the norm, in order to create a more inclusive environment, is to use your ears — you’ve got two ears and one mouth. 

“Listen more. Listen to the value, listen to the ideas, listen to the pieces of the puzzle that actually resonate with your rhetoric and see if it moves you on.

“If it hits that sweet spot of innovation and you think this could work, then just lower the guard of being defensive over your own ideas or strategies and allow yourself to be open to new thought processes coming in. 

“These processes will start to change rhetoric, language, behaviour, policy and strategy in a way that will move the organisation forward. So, mavericks and outliers are basically those who inject new information into an environment and make people feel a little uncomfortable — but that’s a good thing.”

You’ve spoken before about resilience — can you share a personal moment of struggle and how you overcame it?

Naomi Sesay: “Well, many times in my life I’ve faced personal struggles. One of those times was when I was actually in wealth creation, and at that time I desperately wanted to be financially free, but I didn’t know how to go about doing it.

“Like everybody else in the early 2000s, I had a lot of personal debt, which frightened me a lot and stressed me. How I got out of it, and got out very quickly, was through a process of visualisation. I started asking myself what I really wanted instead of focusing on the things I didn’t want.

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“I knew I didn’t want debt, I knew I didn’t want to feel this way, but what did I really want to replace that with? So, I visualised where I wanted to be, how I wanted to do it, where I was going with it, and why. That suddenly changed my mindset into a place where I could actually get there if I chunked it backwards.

“If I wanted to get there tomorrow, I needed to do this today; if I wanted to get there next month, I needed to do that. Slowly, I started accumulating property, contacts, networks, ideas, and slowly my debt started reducing. Eventually, I got to a point where I was speaking about it, I opened a company, and it all seemed to roll from there.

“The key to anyone getting out of any problem is to be still and ask yourself: what do you want, when do you want it, how are you going to get it, with whom? That lowers stress levels, clears your mind, and allows inspiration to come. Your intuition is really important in those situations.”

Looking back, if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Naomi Sesay: “If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be: stick to your vision and make sure that your vision is so big that it actually scares you. Because even if you shoot for the universe, you’ll still hit the stars.

“So, just go for it. Keep your vision as large and as big as possible, because nothing is impossible until you say it is.”

This exclusive interview with Naomi Sesay was conducted by Chris Tompkins of The Motivational Speakers Agency.

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