Coca-Cola chief executive tops international black, Asian, and minority ethnic executive power list
The boss of The Coca-Cola Company, Muhtar Kent, has topped a list of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) bosses from around the US, UK and Ireland.
The ranking, put together by executive search firm Audeliss, placed Manjit Wolstenholme, chair of Provident Financial second and Albert Cheng, chief operations officer at Amazon Studios in third.
Its release follows a similar one from the House of Lords last month.
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The 100-strong list is part of a wider campaign from Audeliss to highlight BAME business leaders.
Kent said:
I am pleased and honoured to work alongside people of character from many nations and people groups. To me, our headquarters looks like a miniature united nations and we're a much stronger business because of the contributions of all kinds of people from all across the world.
The top ten
| Rank | Name | Company | Job Title | Country |
| 1 | Muhtar Kent | The Coca-Cola Company | Chairman and chief executive | UK |
| 2 | Manjit Wolstenholme | Provident Financial | Chairman | UK |
| 3 | Albert Cheng | Amazon Studios | Chief operating officer | US |
| 4 | Tunji Akintokun | Cisco | Director – global virtual sales | UK |
| 5 | Ruby McGregor | Mitie Group | Chief executive | UK |
| 6 | Minouche Shafik | The Bank of England | Deputy governor of markets and banking | UK |
| 7 | Ajay Banga | Mastercard | President and chief executive | US |
| 8 | Stacy Brown-Philpot | TaskRabbit | Chief executive | US |
| 9 | Karen Blackett | MediaCom | Chairwoman | UK |
| 10 | William Kornegay | Hilton Worldwide | Senior VP – supply management | US |
Research out today from Audeliss has shown 70 per cent of the UK population are more likely to buy products from, or use the services of, a company which they consider to be inclusive of all minorities and diverse in its approach to employment.
And 86 per cent of the UK population say it’s important for people at the very top of organisations to promote messages of diversity and inclusion.
Suki Sandhu, Audeliss chief executive, said:
There is a diversity deficit at the very top of organisations in both the UK and the US. We whole-heartedly believe that making diverse role models visible and celebrating them is the most powerful way to address this as you are demonstrating to the leaders of tomorrow exactly what is possible for minority ethnic groups.
Wolstenholme is the only female BAME chair of a FTSE 100 company and Stacy Brown-Philpot, chief executive of odd job startup TaskRabbit – ranked 8th – is the only female BAME chief executive in Silicon Valley.
The movement has garnered support from some of the UK's biggest names in business.
Paul Polman, chief executive of consumer goods firm Unilever, Ashok Vaswani, boss of Barclays UK, and Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England have all offered their support.
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Across the FTSE 100, three per cent of chief executives are not white, while on the Alternative Investment Market (Aim) non-white chief executives account for seven per cent of bosses.
In the US 11 per cent of S&P 100 bosses are not white.
The judging panel for putting together the finally 100 was made up Polman, Vaswani, Vivian Hunt, managing partner McKinsey; economist Linda Yueh, and Nina Vaca, chair and chief executive of Pinnacle Group.