ICA18 Shortlisted Nominee.
Diversity Champion Award for Public Sector
Dame Sue Owen DCB has been the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) since 2013. She has pursued the diversity agenda actively at all stages of her career. As an academic her research was on the costs of being a woman in terms of lower lifetime earnings than men and as a government economist she argued successfully for the introduction of statutory paternity leave. In leadership roles since 2002 Sue has championed disabled people at HMTreasury, women at DfID, LGBT colleagues at DWP (getting into the Stonewall top 100) and mental health issues at DCMS. In 2014 she became the civil service wide (380,000 people) LGBT straight ally champion, and in 2015 the overall civil service Diversity & Inclusion champion. As a visible leader, Sue has provided clear leadership in driving the development and delivery of the Civil Service’s Diversity & Inclusion Strategy.