Funke Abimbola
Funke Abimbola is a multi-award-winning C-suite healthcare executive, Lawyer, Speaker and strong advocate of corporate and social diversity, who has been honoured with an MBE by Queen Elizabeth. She currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Diversity, Inclusion and Equity at the Austen Bronte Consultancy, where she empowers corporates and firms to reach a goal – which is improving leadership by leveraging the impact of diversity, inclusion, belonging and equity.
Funke’s educational background includes a degree in Law from Newcastle University, an Executive Business Studies from the Wharton School and various postgraduate studies from notable institutions such as John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Princeton University, Stanford University School of Medicine, University of Oxford, The University of Manchester, Yale University, INSEAD and the University of Cambridge.
Before Austen Bronte Consultancy, Funke was a Global General Counsel and Diversity & Inclusion Lead at Cycle Pharmaceuticals from July 2019 to April 2020. She was also Director of Operations (Dispute Resolution), Diversity and Inclusion Lead at Mishcon de Reya LLP, briefly from February 2019 to May 2019.
As a diversity and inclusion leader, Funke is passionate about promoting, encouraging and campaigning for more equality, diversity and inclusion across the corporate world and society at large. To this end, she has led a wide range of initiatives and projects, partnering with a good number of organizations to drive societal change. She has worked with large corporates, the Law Society, aspiring solicitors, Speakers4Schools and the UK Government.
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Funke’s interest lies within three main diversity strands which are: gender, ethnicity and social background.
As well as being a diversity and inclusion leader, Funke provides inspirational talks to thousands of students annually and leadership coaching to both students and young professionals.
Additionally, She is a regular media contributor, providing business commentary on both BBC TV and notable radio channels.
In recognition of her impacts, Funke has received several award nominations including the following accolades:
Funke was ranked by the Financial Times as a top 15 minority ethnic Leader and champion of women in business across the UK, US, Ireland and Canada; awarded ‘Point of Light’ status by the UK Prime Minister in 2016 for her positive impacts in voluntary diversity work, appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of her services to diversity and young people in 2017, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire for her contributions to social and corporate diversity in 2019.
Funke is a member of the University Court at the University of Hertfordshire and has volunteered on the board of various institutions including Uxbridge College and Sandridge School.