Simon Fanshawe

SIMON FANSHAWE OBE is a diversity consultant, broadcaster and author. He is the
co-founder of the leading consultancy Diversity by Design. He and his colleague Rachel
Cashman have the top ten business podcast “Fearless Diversity”.
He is currently on the Board of Powerful Women, is Chairman of Hexagon Housing
Association and the Rector of Edinburgh University.
He was previously Chairman of Sussex University, a non-exec director of Housing & Care
21, a Governor of the Museum of London and on the Board of Brighton Dome & Festival.
He has grown and sold successfully two businesses. He was one of the six co-founders in
1989 of the lesbian and gay equality campaign Stonewall - a key influencer in the strategy to
create legal equality for lesbians and gays, which was completed by the Marriage (Same Sex
Couples) Act in 2014.
His latest book “The Power of Difference” was published in 2022 by Kogan Page. It is the
Chartered Institute Management’s Book of 2023. He was voted the second Most Influential
Thinker in 2022 by HR Magazine and inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2023.
He has long been involved in campaigns for equality and positive social change and has
served on the Board of companies and organisations in the private and charity sectors for
over thirty-five years.
In 2024 he co-authored (with Matilda Gosling) the report “Flying Flags and Ticking Boxes.
What Went Wrong With EDI. And How Leaders Can Fix It”
He was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to Higher Education and made an Honorary
Doctor of the University of Sussex for services to diversity and human rights.
He lives in Brighton with his husband and they have neither children nor dogs. When not
celebrating difference, he is cooking.