Outstanding Case Writer Award Finalist (The Case Centre)

Ros Atkins, the presenter of the BBC’s nightly primetime news programme Outside Source, had a distinguished and successful career at the BBC. Despite his successes as a journalist and presenter, however, he knew he was not living up to his own and the BBC’s values and mission when it came to gender equality on his show. This had bothered him for years, but his positive intentions never seemed to translate into real changes toward equalising the representation of women and men on air. A car drive where Atkins spent an hour listening to a radio show with no female guests, paired with a leadership development trip to Silicon Valley, pushed him from intention into action and he decided to find a way to use data to drive change. This case study describes the idea that Atkins had, how he tested it on his own show and how he – after a few months of success – expanded it first throughout the BBC to over 500 content teams globally and then to more than 25 external partner organisations (and counting). The case offers an example of how transformative organisational change promoting gender diversity can come from an unexpected source and explores the personal, leadership and organisational challenges that emerge along the way.