EY Foundation patron, Nathaniel Peat, discusses his work to create diversity equity
By CA magazine
4 May 2023
Serial entrepreneur and EY Foundation co-founder Nathaniel Peat is on a mission to create a more equal society. He talks to Lysanne Currie about his work rehabilitating young offenders and boosting diversity in the City
What happens when the fast-paced, international entrepreneurial life comes to a sharp stop? Nathaniel Peat knows. Two years ago he was hospitalised by Covid. “It was a real shocker,” he says. “I tested positive, thought, ‘Okay, I’ll get over this.’ Then things got dramatically worse – when the ambulance came for me, my oxygen level had dropped to 73 [normal oxygen levels are 95–100]. The ambulance got to me just in time. I couldn’t breathe properly, the sirens were going like crazy and they took me straight into ICU.”
“When I moved from ICU into the general Covid ward, two lung specialists came to see me as, they said, I was one of very few to have come back from such a serious case of Covid. They attributed my recovery to my ability to breathe from the diaphragm, not lungs. That’s down to my martial arts background. My training developed that skill and it saved me.”
Peat has more than 30 years’ experience in martial arts. He has coached thousands of individuals internationally in combat sports, urban knife defence, “gross motor” close hand combat and personal protection. It is also the foundation for the Safety Box, the social enterprise he founded 17 years ago after the death of family friend, aspiring footballer Kiyan Prince, who was stabbed on the street in 2006. Multiple award winning, the company aims to reduce youth violence by helping young people develop important skills such as leadership, communication and conflict resolution.
The Safety Box is only one string to Peat’s busy bow. He is co-founder and Chairman of Gennex Solar, an innovative renewable energy company that operates in Africa and the Caribbean, patron and co-founder of the EY Foundation, the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council representative to the UK South, a consultative adviser to Jamaica’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and currently sits on the Black Advisory Committee of Lloyds Banking Group (LBG). Peat’s motto is “Aspire to inspire before you expire”.
His life was a fulfilling global whirlwind before Covid brought that to a hard stop. The super-fit Peat spent three months in hospital, then a slow three months recovering at home. “When I got out of hospital, 10 minutes walking would make me tired,” he says. “I had to gradually move from a 10-minute walk, 20-minute walk, 30-minute walk… I measured my lung capacity every day and the day it was back to 100% normal felt fantastic!”
The great reset
Of all the sobering Covid-19 recovery stories, little has been written about the entrepreneurs and how they manage – personally and practically. “I had people I could trust who could run stuff,” says Peat of the day-to-day requirements of staying open for business. Personally, though, he had to learn how to do nothing. There was no sneaky emailing on his phone. “I had all sorts of things in my hands, movement was too hard,” he says. “But I had a lot of thinking time and, when I could sit up and was able to use my hands, I jumped back into the essentials.”
His pioneering solar company, Gennex, was well established in Kenya but was also just beginning to take off in Jamaica. Months earlier, Gennex had been approached by the government to work on its Hope programme, teaching young people how to install solar energy systems in the island. “Covid slowed Gennex down significantly in both countries, to the point where we had no trade at all,” Peat recalls. “However, the orders are coming back in and the conversation in Jamaica has been re-established. And [the pause] gave me some time to focus on the Safety Box. I’d got to a place where burnout was starting to make an impact on me: the travelling, the early mornings, it had been full on.”
The experience has been the catalyst for some big changes in Peat’s life. He now never takes work home with him, leaving his laptop in the office, switching his work phone off in the evenings and giving himself a tech-free 90 minutes before bedtime, which he has brought forward to 10pm. And he has altered his diet – “I’m probably 80% vegan now” – and drinks filtered water. He moved out of London to a rural location for the better air quality and now drives a hybrid car. “It’s a different mindset regarding everything: life, wellbeing, sustainability, health – mental, physical and spiritual,” he says. “When life is so fast, often you miss the important parts, and it’s when you’re in a hospital bed that you realise you could have done things differently. The experience has really stimulated more purpose inside of me.”
Safety first
That purpose is about creating opportunity, both for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and, at the other end of the scale, for black and Asian people at board level. There are similarities, he says: “It’s about changing mindsets and knowing how to spot and deal with microaggressions and unconscious bias.”
He is a patron of the EY Foundation, the charity that helps low-income young people get the skills and experience needed to kickstart their careers by matching them with paid work placements. “It really is changing lives,” he says. “They’re in 18 locations, delivering services for so many young people. There’s well over 300 employers who have got on the books, and they have the ability to put them into a work placement. It is so fantastic. The EY foundation is really hitting the mark in terms of impact.”
His own Safety Box social enterprise has enjoyed nearly two decades of impact, helping young people handle themselves better in what can be a dangerous environment. “We are driven to help foster a mind of achievement, helping youngsters to break down barriers and strive towards success,” he says. “Most importantly, our mission is to help keep children and young people safe.”
We talk about the recent rise of Andrew Tate and a particular macho, misogynist culture. “We’re helping boys realise they can be vulnerable, they can cry and that there can be great power in being humble,” he says. “We try to help reprogramme their thinking, because what they see, either through media or music, is so dangerous in terms of how boys shape themselves. We try to disarm them from knife crime, by teaching them high-level personal development skills and unlocking habitual behaviours.”
The Safety Box team take a psychological approach: “We engage them with techniques that will stimulate a dopamine response – sport, for example. Then, when they’re in that state, we can start a conversation. We do a lot of visualisation with our young people to help them destress themselves and take them to their anchor point – which is, effectively, the brain.”
Peat talks with pride about some of the young offenders who have been through one of their programmes, Aspire Higher. He mentions one, Jack Hever, who was serving three years for burglary. Hever engaged in their programme, became a mentor and had an idea in prison. He now owns his own valet business. Peat’s vision for 2023 is to secure more programmes in more prisons. “These interventions will reduce the reoffending rates,” he says, with certainty. “We’re trying to change mindsets.”
Change at the top
Peat is not just concerned with the mindsets of the young. He joined LBG’s Black Advisory Committee after the bank revealed in 2020 that it paid its black staff 20% less than their peers. The report kickstarted its five-year race action plan. “The bank revealed that the gap was due to a lack of black staff in senior positions,” says Peat. “The Advisory Committee is steering them to change that. We want equity, not equality – a lot of people don’t understand the difference. Equality means each group of individuals is given the same resources or opportunities whereas equity recognises each individual has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. It is so important that companies understand this and LBG is really putting their money where their mouth is. We’ve got engagement right away from the top level and we meet once a month, sometimes more. It’s a really big strategy.”
While Peat applauds the progress he stresses there is still so much work to do. “There is a lot of unconscious bias in the City, especially in the older, more traditional type of set-up. It’s built into the structure. Then there is a problem with the pipeline. Look at the boards – there are no black CEOs or chairs on the FTSE 100. And in the US, only 1% of Fortune 500 companies are led by black CEOs. The UK has got a long way to go in changing the way people think – there is just incredible talent that is being missed as a result of unconscious bias and systemic prejudice.”
Succession
Peat urges all business leaders to take a fresh look at their succession planning and recruitment, suggesting senior executives need to think about a diverse type of succession planning. “A lot of jobs are still given to friends of a friend,” he says. “It’s a real disadvantage to people who have got the talent but just don’t have the network. I often hear that the reason there are no black people in the senior jobs is that black people don’t apply. I always say to them, ‘Maybe you’re not sharing in the right place.’ They need to look at their recruitment strategy: connect with recruiters like Green Park [broadcaster Trevor Phillips’ company] that specifically recruit black and Asian talent to widen the net. Secondly, use mentoring to help bring people through the pipeline: ask senior board-level directors to mentor middle managers to help stretch them, and be a touchpoint. Not only will this increase the diverse talent at the top, the mentees will also change the mindset of the senior directors.”
Peat recalls an initiative he co-ran with Barclays and others a few years ago. “We had directors mentoring boys in Lewisham," he says. "Marcus Agius, former Group Chairman of Barclays, spoke at one of our events. He was great, but that event changed his perception. Many directors don’t go to places where they see people of colour or diverse communities, but by introducing them and by starting this type of mentorship and two-way conversations, perceptions change. And once the perception of one senior leader changes, it’s easy for them to influence the other leaders. People copy each other. It’s the ripple effect – we just need to keep skimming the pebbles.”
The Safety Box works to reduce reoffending rates, something which could save the justice system billions while also mitigating labour shortages.
45% of employers are open to recruiting a former offender
75% of people are happy buying from firms employing ex-offenders
81% say employing ex-offenders is a positive contribution to society
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