In Stephen Frost’s new book The Inclusion Imperative: How Real Inclusion Creates Better Business and Builds Better Societies he explains how the London Olympics did diversity and delivered inclusion, whereas the Sochi Games don’t.
He writes: “If the London Olympic and Paralympic Games were a triumph for positive values and diversity as well as metaphorical sunshine for the Olympic Brand and the IOC, the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics represents its antithesis.”
Stephen believes the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics not only ignores the London 2012 legacy but also demonstrates a lack of inclusive leadership.
He argues that Sochi 2014 couldn’t be more different from London 2012. Whereas London was “Everyone’s 2012” and everyone felt included, Sochi is known at the moment for terrorism and anti-gay policies.
London created the most successful and most inclusive Games ever. Sochi had it on a plate. They chose not to take it, a tragic lack of leadership on their part.
He explains what is also striking about Sochi is that it challenges the presumption that progress is a foregone conclusion – whether you look at gay rights, political representation, business transformation or free speech – and that dramatic regression in the modern age is still very possible.
Stephen Frost is former Head of Diversity and Inclusion for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) 2007-2012, the first time the Olympics ever had such a position and is currently a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University.
At LOCOG, his team was responsible for 22 programs across a 200,000 workforce, $2 billion procurement spend, and 57 delivery functions. These ranged from inclusiveness in an 11 million ticket programme, to accessible venues at 134 separate sites.
His team managed a series of supply and demand side interventions that achieved unprecedented workforce diversity. The LOCOG Business Charter set new standards in supplier diversity and LOCOG became the first organisation in the UK to achieve the Diversity Works for London Gold Standard and Advanced Level of the Equality Standard for Sport.
From 2004-2007 he established and led the workplace team at Stonewall, Europe’s largest LGBT equality organisation; establishing and growing the Diversity Champions programme to over 300 members, launching the UK’s first lesbian and gay recruitment guide, establishing the LGBT Leadership programme in conjunction with Harvard University, and developing the Workplace Equality Index which has become a standard performance measure across many global employers.
He started his career in advertising where he worked on disability and age awareness campaigns. He was a Hertford College Scholar at Oxford, a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
A keen cyclist, Stephen also ran the New York Marathon for Whiz-Kidz charity for disabled children and is a volunteer teacher in an East London night school. He was recipient of the 2010 Peter Robertson Award for Equality and Diversity Champions and in 2011 he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
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