Aviva EDLP – Cohort 5
Your Facilitators
“Sometimes, we don’t know that we are ready until someone tells us we are.”
Srividya Srinivasan
The Diversity Practice
Welcomes this opportunity to support pioneering, transformative leadership development for Black, Asian, and Ethnically Diverse Leaders working at Aviva.
We are an international award-winning diversity-led management consultancy that specialises in delivering inclusion through leadership, organisational development, and executive coaching.
We help our clients work positively with the dynamics of difference – the energy and value that comes from the interaction of those parts of self that make us unique and different – to create thriving, wholesome and inclusive leaders and cultures.
We challenge and support our clients to think differently, reimagine their organisations without diversity-related boundaries, and lay the foundations from which leaders and their teams can grow and excel regardless of their difference.
Our clients include: Bloomberg, Credit Suisse, Ernst & Young, Kings College University, Linkedin, Northern Trust, NHS Leadership Academy, Refinitiv, Yara International.
For further information go to www.diversitypractice.com
Facilitation Team
Joshua
Joshua is a seasoned facilitator and executive coach with over a decade of experience in guiding individuals and teams towards personal and professional excellence.
With a rich background spanning multiple sectors including corporate, education, and charity, Joshua brings a diverse skill set when partnering with his clients. Having navigated the unique challenges of each sector, he is able to adapt and tailor his facilitation approach to meet the specific needs of diverse environments and is committed to creating inclusive and equitable spaces.
Joshua has facilitated the Ethnically Diverse Leaders Programme (ELDP) for a number of clients – our transformative leadership development experience designed to equip and inspire ethnically diverse leaders to more successfully navigate their organisation. He has also successfully facilitated dialogues on race with headteachers, recognising the importance of addressing diversity and promoting understanding in educational leadership.
One of Joshua’s key strengths is his extensive training in Advanced Transactional Analysis – a powerful psychological framework for exploring the intricacies of human interactions, fostering meaningful connection, and facilitating transformative change.
With a wealth of experience, a profound understanding of human dynamics, and a passion for constructing compelling narratives, he is a catalyst for empowering individuals and teams on their journey to success and fulfilment.
Joshua Okunlola
Senior Consultant and Leadership Coach
The Diversity Practice
Deborah
Deborah Asante’s first career was as an actor working in Theatre, Radio, Film and TV in the UK and abroad and this grounding has been invaluable in her work as a leadership coach, facilitator and role player specialising in communication skills for leadership.
She has over 20 years experience working in experiential training and development for executives and professionals across public, private and non profit sectors. Designing as well as delivering impactful interventions that help leaders develop insight and skills to lead more effectively.
Deborah works with senior leaders in the Senior Civil Service on a variety of programmes from negotiation skills to creating coaching culture. She also works specifically with their diverse leader population building confidence and executive presence. She has worked internationally with the International Office of Migration -Greece helping the senior leadership team work more effectively together in times of crisis and calm, the Foreign Office in China, Nigeria and Yemen helping them to harness the power of diversity through stories and effective communication. She has helped Vodaphone develop their director and C-suite potentials across the globe.
Deborah also does a lot of work with the NHS through the NHS National Leadership Academy, the Kings Fund, the London Leadership Academy and a variety of PCN’s and hospital trusts as a facilitator and also as a coach on NHS England’s Looking After You Too BAME service.
Other companies where Deborah has supported leaders development include The Bank of England, Northern Trust, Bloomberg, LinkedIn, EY, PWC and WWF.
Deborah is a certified coach and NLP practitioner. She is interested in how techniques from the theatre such as Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre help leaders see themselves more clear and thus chart different ways of behaving. Her interventions include reflection, dialogue writing and embodiment techniques. Deborah is passionate about helping leaders lead from their authentic selves, and foster a greater sense of humanity and inclusion in their leadership.
Deborah Asante
Senior Consultant and Leadership Coach
The Diversity Practice
Imtiyaz Foolat
Imtiyaz has over 20 years of experience working in change, operations, and business leadership roles. Throughout this time, he has developed a passion for improving diversity in leadership, with a core ethic that ‘Diversity in leadership should be representative of diversity in people led and customers served’.
He is a highly experienced executive leader, with a track record of shaping organisational strategy, developing transformational programmes and building team effectiveness for Aviva, British Gas, and Centrica.
As an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation, Imtiyaz played a foundational role in setting up and running a professional global coaching faculty within a major global financial organisation making coaching affordable and accessible to more leaders across the business increasing performance and leadership capability.
On diversity, Imtiyaz has recognised and experienced first-hand the lack of diversity in organisations, particularly on racial/ethnic and gender representation in senior leadership roles. This has stoked a passion for facilitating learning, coaching, and sharing of experiences that support the development of racially/ethnically diverse professionals and their leaders to create more inclusive cultures and enable changes to systems in this space.
As a leadership coach and facilitator, he has designed and facilitated talent development programmes aimed at improving gender and race diversity at senior levels, as well as diversity, equality, and inclusion programmes, processing trauma and micro aggressions, and inclusive leadership coaching and workshops for a range of organisations.
Imtiyaz has a Bachelor of Arts in Human Resources Management and Services from De Montfort University. He is an Associate Board Member of the International Coach Federation (UK) for Inclusion & Belonging.
Imtiyaz Foolat
Senior Consultant and Leadership Coach
The Diversity Practice