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Dear McLaren Racing fans,

During this short break from Formula 1 racing, I wanted to address you all to discuss an important topic that makes up a key part of our sustainability strategy.

I followed closely as we completed the second year of our 60 Scholars programme - an accelerated course of learning and mentorship for 18- to 25-year-olds to identify and support the next generation of female STEM leaders - and was inspired by the passion and the abilities of the brilliant young women who took part in the course.

The success of this programme has proven once more that if you keep breaking down barriers, you will make progress. The quantity and quality of applications we received was extremely high and I’ve no doubt that that the pipeline of talent in this space is of such a high calibre that they will go on to achieve great things in STEM industries.

On the back of this, I was recently asked what diversity, equity, & inclusion means to me. For me, it drives a greater sense of community and increases our variation in thought. The more diverse our input, the greater the output.

As someone fortunate enough to have travelled the globe, I realise the importance of fully appreciating the diverse perspectives of different age groups, races, genders and nationalities, and the potential you can unlock in doing so. It’s a huge and often untapped performance differential that will make you smarter as an organisation.  

More so than ever, our world is moving at an extremely fast pace. With every day that passes, the more advanced our world becomes, and in order to keep up and stay at the front of our sport, it is imperative that we continue to diversify our workforce. You want as many different points of view around you as possible because you learn nothing from surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals. It creates blind spots.

Some sports have not historically been as diverse as they could be, and so it’s vital that we use our platform and extensive partner network to educate and advocate for positive change, raising awareness of not just how important this topic is but the benefits of embracing it. We hope to inspire others to follow our journey and to take action themselves.

We want to set the standard for diversity and inclusion in sport and we’ve made great progress in the last few years, but we are only just getting started. I always say that this is a journey where you never reach your final destination but instead constantly strive to be better.

As of 2023, 29% of our team have come from an underrepresented background - that’s up by six per cent from 2022 - it isn’t so long ago that it was as low as 11%. By the end of the decade, we want that to be 40%. To this aim, in 2023, 45% of our new starters came from an underrepresented background, up six per cent from 2022. That shows that we’re making progress.

This work is being driven by our recruitment practices - which are designed to actively seek out those from a range of backgrounds - and initiatives like 60 Scholars and McLaren Racing Engage. These are focused on supporting talent from underrepresented backgrounds and opening up pathways to careers in motorsport.

It’s my hope that we build a workforce that properly represents what the world looks like. Without that, how can you possibly expect to compete in a high-performance sport such as Formula 1, or to know what works for your audience as a whole? You need to be able to look through the lens of nearly 200 countries, which includes not only different nationalities and genders, but people from low socio-economic backgrounds, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities and those with neurodivergence. You need the experiences and perspectives of all these people in order to get a complete picture of the fanbase you’re serving.

How do you do that? You raise awareness, you create opportunities, and you keep breaking down barriers. Now that sounds simple, but it isn’t because you’ve got to construct the right opportunities, or else it’s just tokenism.

In 2023, we made it a priority to focus on supporting women in motorsport and it’s been exciting to see the results of this work and the long-term success it will undoubtedly bring us.

We’ve already got some brilliant women on our leadership team – more than any other team in Formula 1 – without whom we wouldn’t be able to go racing. For me, our Chief Financial Officer, Laura Bowden, our Chief Marketing Officer, Louise McEwen, our Chief of Staff, Chloe Todd, and our Business Operations Director, Stephanie Carlin, are the best in the business at what they do and stand out as excellent role models for young women.

Then from a racing perspective, it’s a great honour to have made history by signing McLaren’s first female drivers. Emma Gilmour and Cristina Gutiérrez have competed for us in Extreme E, respectively, and both took podiums for NEOM McLaren Extreme E team. We’re also proud to have supported F1 Academy, with Bianca Bustamante representing McLaren in the all-female series for 2024, and Ella Lloyd set to sign with the McLaren Driver Development Programme for 2025.  

By the end of 2023, 20% of our people were female, up by three per cent from 2022. That’s a good start, and I am immensely proud to have such inspirational women throughout our team, but we need to keep improving and keep growing. It’s encouraging that in 2023, 31% of our early careers population was female, which includes apprentices, graduates, interns and trainees. That shows that the future is bright and that the future is more diverse.

The future lies within the younger generation, but they need women in STEM to look up to. That’s why we devised our award-winning Returnship programme, which ran in 2023 and was aimed at reigniting the careers of women returning to STEM roles. Sixty per cent of those on this scheme were placed into permanent roles and will now act as mentors to the younger generation. On the same note, we’ve also seen a 71% increase in the number of STEM Ambassadors within McLaren Racing. Our early careers pipeline presents us with a massive opportunity to have a lasting impact on our overall diversity, but it’s crucial to provide opportunities right across the board.

It also isn’t just about recruiting a new, more diverse workforce, it’s about ensuring they’re comfortable once they’re a part of our team. That’s why we’ve worked hard to embed and promote inclusion into our culture, our values, and our practices. We do this by creating internal networks that foster an environment of diversity and inclusivity. We are also regularly reviewing our policies to ensure they’re supportive of this environment and our people within it.

The objective of these efforts is to forge a more diverse workforce and a greater pool of young talent who want to work in our great sport. We saw that in our 60 Scholars programme. Of the 2023 cohort, four have since taken on roles within McLaren Racing and two joined Extreme E and the ambition is for that number to increase following this year’s programme. I am excited to follow their journeys and see in which direction their careers head.

We recognise that only true collaboration can drive meaningful change across the industry. That’s why we work closely with our partners on these initiatives, to grow our reach and increase the number of role models for those within the business and on our programmes. We have an incredible network of partner brands and organisations, who in turn have some fantastic female leaders. Google, Cisco, and Deloitte were Official Partners of our 60 Scholars programme this year, and they are giants in the world of STEM, who can help us reach hundreds of millions of people, as well as providing us with access to the talented people within their organisation.

I’m proud of McLaren’s initiatives and our work so far, but we now need to turbocharge what we’re doing. We must continue to create even more innovative programmes that drive awareness and create opportunities. As I said earlier, this is a journey where there’s no end destination.

But we absolutely cannot do this alone. It’s imperative that everybody buys into this across the board. As a sport, we’ve made some great initial steps forward, but we now need to accelerate this. We must build on the momentum we've generated through innovative programmes and networks, by also creating more progressive regulations, rules and practices.

Forever forward,  
Zak Brown