The diversity crisis at the world’s most influential think tank

If the Bilderberg Group refuses to change, it has no business playing any part in 21st-century politics and decision-making, writes Charlie Skelton

High-profile investor and diversity campaigner Mellody Hobson is the only black member of the Bilderberg steering committee (Getty)

When Mark Carney took over at the Bank of England in 2013 he was the first foreign governor in its history. The Financial Times described him as “the new broom”. The Independent dubbed him a “dark horse”. Yet Carney saw himself as not so very different from his predecessors. As he said in a speech last year: “I’m the 120th in a very long line of male, white governors of the Bank.”

While in office, Carney spoke out about the importance of racial diversity in organisations. At a Bank of England workshop on “Investing in Ethnicity and Race”, he stressed the value of “diverse decision‐making bodies”, warning that “homogenous groups are vulnerable to over-optimism, bias and groupthink”. And yet, since leaving Threadneedle Street, Carney has been quietly elected to one of the most eerily homogenous decision-making bodies in the world: the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group.

This influential forum held its first conference in Holland in 1954, under the chairmanship of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, and is still going strong. The organisation is run by a steering committee packed with billionaires, corporate CEOs and oil company directors; 34 global notables, including the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg, the president of the World Economic Council and the chairman of Goldman Sachs International. A giddying amount of wealth, talent and power – but somehow there’s only one black person, the high-profile investor, diversity campaigner, and wife of George Lucas, Mellody Hobson.