Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the interior design business. My name is Geoff Hayward and I'm here today with my co host, Susie Rumbold, creative director of Tussuto Interiors and a past president of the British Institute of Interior Design in the wonderful showroom of the Rug Company in Chelsea Harbour to talk about diversity in interior design.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Traditionally, interior designers in the UK were well heeled, well connected lady decorators with good posture and expensive handbags, creating interiors for people just like them. One could even go so far as to say pale, stale and female, unless you fitted this stereotype. It was almost impossible to get a foot in the door of a design studio, never mind finding an actual job.
It felt like this would never change. But then in 2020, seemingly out of nowhere, a charity called United in Design appeared with a mission to shine a light on the issue and finally do something about it.
So who are United in Design? What exactly was it that they set out to do and how are they going about doing it? And how does their vision for the interiors industry differ from the status quo? Welcome to the interior design business.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: We are delighted to welcome Alex Dorley and Iman Akbar from United in Design to the show. Welcome both.
[00:01:26] Speaker C: Thank you for having us.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Before we begin, I just wonder whether each of you would give us a brief introduction to yourselves and how you came to be involved with United in Design and what you actually do for the charity. So I don't know, Iman, do you want to start with that?
[00:01:40] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I follow on the coattails of giants Sophie and Alex, but I do a small part and it's really about supporting the a goal that they had when they set up United in Design to serve the sector.
It's about sort of really managing and making sure that our programming and our policy from an operations perspective is scalable and tight and that's really where we spent the last year working together. And in terms of the strategy for
[00:02:10] Speaker B: a year, it's four months.
[00:02:11] Speaker D: Yeah, a little bit over, but yeah, a year. And my job is just to make sure that we're carrying out the vision and the strategy of the board to the best of the ability to serve the industry.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:02:25] Speaker C: And Alex, what's your role?
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Because I know you're one of the founders.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: I am a co founder and it's not a small role that you have, Iman. I'm going to just clear that up now. Iman is our incredible director and has been with us since, well, you're into your second year now because it's October that you started and is an Amazing addition. So I'm an interior designer. I've been an interior designer for 11 years and I run my own business.
And in 20, following the murder of George Floyd, it was very evident. I mean, it was evident in my own career anyway as being often the only person of color in any of the rooms I was in. I was the only black person when I studied at KLC on my course. So I knew there was this lack of diversity and representation anyway.
And then everyone put their little black squares on Instagram following the merger of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matters movement. And people in our industry said, yeah, there is an issue and a problem, but nobody seemed to be kind of putting their head above the parapet. And I started knocking on a few doors and having some conversations and was put in touch with Sophie. And it was one of those moments where we said, well, if it's not. If it's not going to be us, then who's going. Who is actually going to take on this mission and this mantle? And yeah, so we started a charity, having never intended to start a charity and had no experience of starting a charity, but we knew we had to do something. So off we went.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: It's amazing because the idea seems to have been formulated for a number of years and a number of different experiences came to push you in this direction.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: Yes, I mean, we, Sophie and I both believe that an industry is a better industry if it has representation first and foremost. I had had experience of mentorship, so I had been mentored when I left klc, so I knew mentoring worked. My daughter had been through a program with the Royal Ballet School, through a Chance to Dance program which is about outre into communities to bring in people of color into the world of ballet. So I knew outreach worked.
Sophie obviously in her business hires interns all of the time, so giving real life work experience in studios we knew would also work. So it was a combination of all those things coming together to develop a program that we could deliver, working with another charity called, Sorry, Interiors Educator. Thank you, Iman. The Interior Educators, which are across 57 universities in the UK.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: That's a great booker, isn't it?
[00:05:05] Speaker C: It is. So we tapped in with them and then just cobbled together this program, which I ran predominantly with our then sort of administrator, Janet. And we wrote the programs ourselves and we had no idea what we were doing really, but it was very much, we feel like this is the right thing to do. We want to give people an opportun opportunity. We wanted to lead with kindness and support. And nurturing.
It wasn't about finger pointing.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: And how did. How did Sophie come to be involved? Because obviously she's the other half of this kind of founding partnership.
[00:05:41] Speaker C: Yeah, well, Sophie did a deep dive into her own studio practice. I didn't know her, I'd never met her before.
And interestingly, I'd had a conversation with Hatta Bing, who was the then editor of House and Garden magazine. Sophie had also had a chat with Hatter about it.
And then Hatter just said, I really feel like you two. There's a synergy between you two and you should chat. And obviously it's Covid. So we couldn't meet in person, so we had a zoom and I just really, really liked her. And, I mean, she's not here to say, but I feel like the feeling was mutual and we were on the same page and that's kind of how it came to be. We're both quite tenacious people and get the bit between our teeth. So we were, yeah, very determined, apart
[00:06:32] Speaker B: from Floyd, which of course, the world was just horrified when that happened. Everyone just kind of went, were there any other kind of examples that either of you were aware of? I mean, you, Alex, that kind of made you feel, my God, this really has to happen.
I mean, I'm thinking about people perhaps, you know, that you knew of, that had the barriers, the shutters pulled down in their faces.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: I mean, there's lots of examples that you can give to people that have really struggled to get into the industry. I think it needed a moment like that.
Essentially, what happened that murder then became a world event. It needed that for people to take notice, stand up, take it seriously, be open to hearing other people's opinions.
I think without that, it probably would have continued to fall on deaf ears and we wouldn't be sitting here today and the industry wouldn't have moved forward as it has done.
There were not statistics at the time because obviously our industry, you will obviously know this, it's not set up in the same way as architecture. So with architecture, they will have a lot of that data with regards to who's practicing, their background, et cetera, et cetera. We didn't have that kind of central repository within our industry. I know that the bid did do
[00:07:58] Speaker D: something research in 2020, which I think talks to sort of what Alex was
[00:08:03] Speaker B: saying, informed what you were doing.
[00:08:04] Speaker D: Yeah, interesting. And the stats were that if you look at the Internet, the national average of minority communities, representation in higher education across subjects, it's about 23%. And the representation in interior Design is significantly higher at 29% representation, which was incredible. But when you saw the transition into the workplace, that was less than 10% of those graduates.
And when they did go into workplace, it was often sort of the unskilled labor that they were taking on and weren't able to make their career progression. So that's to answer your original question.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: It's really interesting just to hear the whole story and I'm sure we're going to come on to how things have changed, but this was all back in 2020, which feels like an eternity ago.
So when you actually started, did you have any sense of, I know you were working with interior educators at the time, but was there any sense of what you could practically offer?
[00:09:02] Speaker C: No, I don't think we went into it with any kind of preconceived notions of what it would become.
We just felt very strongly that we had to do something.
And I think we reached out to a lot of people to hear their experiences.
I mean, hundreds of people that had tried to break into the industry.
Some had different experiences, some were, you know, told their face didn't fit the brand, you know, in interview or, you know, the look of surprise when they're sat in the waiting room and their name is called and it's, you know, or people, you know. One of our interns had sent 40 CVs out and hadn't had one response before she actually, you know, came via United in Design. So hearing all of these stories, you couldn't help but sort of be moved by them. So even though we, Sophie and I were sort of, very often sort of sat across each other from each other saying oh my gosh, what, what are we taking on here?
That was the impetus because you, you, you knew people were then looking at us saying you could be the, you know, our way in, so please help us.
And, and so yeah, on, off we, off we went.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: So, so how does United Design actually work then? What do you do?
[00:10:25] Speaker D: Go on, Emma, as a charity trust, what we do is we close the gap between education and employment, which I think is really, really important. And that's where the major disconnect has happened. And we do it for sort of minority communities and for lower socio economic backgrounds. When I came in, they had seven wonderful programs which we've consolidated into three legacy programs which really our aim is to grow and scale year on year. And that is our education and outreach program which is where they go to schools and really bring in the of the best pioneers and close the gap between really what the industry is and what it's perceived to be. We have the internship program which Alex was mentioning, she has been sort of run and you set up with Janet, which is where people are going in and getting experience. And then we have our mentorship program which is where we connect people in the industry having sort of a pain point to individuals who have served and are expert in that pain point. So really it's about facilitating knowledge networks and resources.
[00:11:28] Speaker C: Yeah, because I think when you looked at sort of school age children and also people from sort of black and Asian communities, there can be this kind of preconceived notion that a career within the creative field isn't one that is stable, that you are not going to earn, you know, a decent kind of wage if you're going to be working within that. And so typically people would go down more traditional route, but we know that not everybody is going to be a doctor or a lawyer or solicitor or whatever.
And so it's important for us to get into those schools and colleges to say, look, this is a path within, you know, interior design. But also interior design is just one sort of. Even if you study interior design, look at all of these amazing careers that you could have within our industry, within our sector, which is vast.
So it's opening their eyes to that, obviously working with the universities then as well to.
Once you've decided you want to maybe follow this as a career, then we work with the universities, then we provide the internship opportunity, then you've gone through that and then we also then provide you with the mentoring because not everybody goes through the university route. And maybe there are people that come into our industry later in life and want to set up their own businesses, but they also then need the mentorship. So it was important for Sophie and I to look at where all of the kind of issues and problems were and then plug those gaps with these programs. So it's kind of like end to end support.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: And it sounds just in those two responses there that you've evolved quite significantly since the start.
How would you describe where you are now to where you were back in 2020?
[00:13:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think we were incredibly ambitious at the start, bearing in mind we both had our own jobs and businesses as well to run alongside United in Design.
The, you know, the landscape has changed as well, massively. It was a really hot topic in 2020 when we started and, you know, you have to look globally across the world to see that DEI is now not so much of a hot topic and is sometimes in some places actually being, you Know, really pushed to the back burner and not being kind of celebrated at all. So you're always up against that, as.
So we've needed to focus, I would say, focus on the areas that were making the most impact.
And like Iman, you know, said it's those three areas. So it's the education, the employment, and then the mentoring support. So I think it's much better to do less things, but just really, really well. And I think that's where Iman has kind of come on. You know, you did that deep dive. I think, for the first six to eight months of your, you know, kind of time with us, it looking at what we'd been doing.
And we're also like, this went well. This didn't go as well. This could be improved. Like, we're like, it's not about the ego. I'm very, you know, we're like, iman, have a look.
And yeah, you. You've brought in some big changes, which I think, you know, at the. At the start it was like, oh, because you. You kind of can feel a bit wedded to these things. But it's really good to have an external perspective. And also from somebody who's not in our industry, I think that's also really, really important because you're not coming in, you know, Imam was not coming in with any, like, preconceived notions at all. And also your business background has been incredible for us. So I think that's been really important.
And we're definitely moving forward now with far more clarity.
Yeah. And a good plan. Excellent.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: In the Next. The next 10 years. Yeah.
[00:15:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: So I was going to say, how many students have you just to unpack the kind of internship aspect. How many students have you been able to place in internships only?
And how has that changed over the succession of the years?
[00:15:36] Speaker D: Yeah, that's such a great question. So this is really the internship program, which is the career pathway, is probably the hardest to put through and to maintain. And it's been the one that's been really, really successful, which I think speaks to itself. So in the first four cohorts that Sophie and Alex have really carried through, there have been six interns in each cohort, which I think has given us the data and the space to really sort of manage and analyze. And then this cohort, which is Cohort 5, we have 17 people that we're going to be putting through. We've already got 15 in placements, which is just fantastic. So again, it goes back to really consolidating having Those policies in place, which is a constant sort of improvement that we need to do and then scaling and growth is really where we're going. So that is 17, this cohort. And our aim really is to make sure that this is a cornerstone that continues to grow year on year.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: And presumably it's about the kind of companies who are taking your interns on and having great relationships with those guys too.
[00:16:38] Speaker C: Yes, yeah, Abs, absolutely. We've, we've had people that have been with us from the very start.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: And what the internships, how long is somebody, if they take on an internship, how long are they, how long is the placement?
[00:16:49] Speaker C: So yeah, yeah, I mean the first, in the first four cohorts they actually spent a year.
So in the first they, they spent a year and they would do so again. When we were starting we were like, okay, a company probably can't take somebody for a full year, but they could absolutely take somebody maybe for three months. So then we were pooling together four companies that would take somebody for three months each, which would give that person a whole year's worth of experience paid.
And of those first full co hosts of how many is that? 20 something?
24 people, 98% are now working full time within the industry.
They've all got full time jobs across some incredible companies like Boss Studio and Studio Ashby and they're working full time. And some of our, Philip Jeffries and you know, they've got some fabulous jobs. Peter Mickich has taken, I think three of our, of our students now find
[00:17:54] Speaker B: that people that the studios take on the interns. Is that how it's working?
[00:17:58] Speaker C: So yes.
[00:17:59] Speaker D: Do you mean in terms of employment or. Yeah, so I think just, just to add to what Alex had said, sort of they had the one year internship and what we have done this year where we've got 17 people hopefully you know, going through the cohort is that they do a minimum of four months.
Several of the companies have come back to us like David Collins Studios and said, and no, we would like to have people for six months. And then four of the studios have already come back to us and said no, we would like to keep them for a year and then possibly keep them on, you know, indefinitely. So I think that progression is really great because it puts the onus on the interns to make sure they're consistently learning, performing. And part of this is really understanding what the rules of engagement is when you going to work, which a lot of young people I think have in their first jobs and then proving themselves and turning it into jobs. Either there or somewhere else is just
[00:18:58] Speaker C: fantastic because we realized they didn't necessarily need the full year because what was happening was after they sort of. Well, at any point during the kind of their three month stint, the companies were like, but we really want to hire them and now they're going to leave and go somewhere else. And so we realized actually that's four companies, that's potentially four people. So by opening it up and being able to take more people, you know, they do. They're spending four, six months and then they're getting jobs anyway at that, at that place. So we were able to then.
[00:19:32] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Whereas if someone just gets plucked up, gets dumped into another. So they end up with four job offers.
[00:19:37] Speaker D: Yes, at the end of.
[00:19:38] Speaker C: Whereas actually that could have been four people with four job offers. So we've. Yeah, that again. But this is like Iman coming in, looking at that and saying, hang on a minute, if we just tweak this, this where suddenly we've gone from six a year to now 17, which is fantastic.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: And the kinds of companies are very credible names.
[00:19:56] Speaker D: I mean, I am just blown away by what both you and Sophie have been able to create and also the companies that have really stepped up, the partners that they have had for every cohort, I mean our veterans, these are the top 1% of residential and hospitality. You've got Laura Hammett, Sophie, obviously, Sophie Ashby, Studio, sorry, Studio Ashby. You've got Sophie Patterson. We have Portia Fox, we have David Collins, Boss Studios. I mean the names go on and on and I. It's like the Oscar speech. I do not want to miss out anyone.
[00:20:29] Speaker C: And the brands.
[00:20:30] Speaker D: And the brands as well. Yeah, Porto Romana. And I think the thing that I really like as an external person coming in, which I found incredible about these companies, is that I'm not surprised these companies are doing business globally. Like, you know, they really are catering to a global customer base and they understand the importance of having a diverse team in terms of ideas, in terms of lived experience. And I think that really reflects the customer base that they have and I think they're really smart and we're excited to be onboarding more companies as we scale and grow.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: You also. I know that United and Design also gets heavily involved in mentoring and Alex, you sort of indicated that perhaps that was more focused for career changes rather than.
How does the mentoring work tell us about that?
[00:21:16] Speaker C: I mean it is absolutely for anybody at any stage in their career. I think if you are a couple of rungs on the ladder above somebody else, then you have something to offer and to give that person. I mean, as I said, when I left klc, my tutor actually became my mentor.
Cause I was always at the front of the class with my hand up. And she was like, you're never gonna leave me alone, so you may as well just come on, spend a couple of days with me. A. And it was invaluable. And she is still, to this day, 11 years later, the person that I will pick up the phone and just ask advice. And I think that is a real gift that you can give someone, actually, just to give of your time. And it can be for anything. So our mentoring program, we have our mentees. I think we were chatting earlier. We have 65 that applied for this year.
[00:22:08] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. And it's really. You know, because mentorship happens in so many different ways.
It can happen organically. It can be more structured. What we're doing, sort of. We sort of had it paused for last year, and we did applicants, and we got 65 applicants, which all brilliant, very hungry individuals who are from all stages of life. Because one of the questions or criticisms, you know, sometimes you get is that, you know, the career pathway program is for, like, individuals coming in fresh out of universities, taking on these internships, or what can you do for me as a mother who maybe wants to change from being a neurosurgeon to being an interior designer? And we've had doctors change careers. We've had this cohort where Teo, who was brilliant, she was a director in hr. So really, we wanted to make sure that we had an outlet for individuals of all ages. And the mentorship program really allows you to do that. So that is basically where we pair. Somebody coming in saying, my. My pain point could be, as a small business, who's my next hire? Or it could be some. Somewhere like, I want to change my career.
Where do I even begin? I don't know anybody in the industry.
So we then find individuals that have had that same lived experience and connect them.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: And is the mentoring process prescriptive in the sense that the mentors spend, let's say, an hour a week on a zoom call with people? Or is it entirely left to the discretion of the mentor and the mentee to work out?
[00:23:35] Speaker D: That's such a great question. So for. So the relationship is three months in terms of that cohort. And we ask them to meet anywhere from twice a month, you know, to once a month, depending on how they want to structure that. We don't prescribe it too much because we understand that sometimes when you are a mentor, you do want to set some work for the individual to go and come back and that requires time.
So it's really, we say a minimum of once a month and it's for that three months, month period. And you can do it really. You know, we have predominantly done it so far on, on Zoom because a lot of the internships we offer are very London based and we do understand as a charity that's going to scale and hopefully reach more people. It's important to reach people across the uk. So. Yeah.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: How do you feel about the, the growing body of interns, mentees that you've got? I mean, do you see them as a community? Do they still feel part of United in Design?
[00:24:35] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. The alumni are just incredible and I know that they have WhatsApp groups and they still chat with each other and we very much encourage our past cohorts to almost like buddy up with the, with the new kind of interns coming in to give support. And we always, if we have any events, we always make sure to invite them. We always still shine a light on them. We follow their, their progress with their careers really closely as well. And if, if one of them does something fabulous, we'll always shout out about it. So yeah, I think they've, they've actually made a really wonderful kind of bond as well, having gone through the program and, and they just have this kind of shared, kind of, just this shared kind of knowledge base with each other and an appreciation I think of from where they've kind of come from and kind of on the journey that they're going to. So I think it's a really important part actually of United in Design and we've really tried to kind of foster that community and family.
[00:25:40] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: So now I see that United in Design has moved into interiors media.
Tell us about that. Where did that idea come from and how have you.
[00:25:51] Speaker D: Looking at you and looking at some of the data.
So that's such a great question because I mean if you look at, at just this room currently we're about like six, seven individuals and we're all working in the interior design sector and we're all serving it and we all have different jobs. Like any industry in any sector, be it medicine or finance or pharma or fashion, there's incredible amount of jobs, you know, and a very rich tapestry of things that need to get done to make the industry work. So what I found coming insight into the industry was really this sort of from the standpoint of speaking to foundations and raising funds from Non profits and like the very large ones in the UK and them looking into us sort of as a charity and saying, but you're an inter designer.
So as an industry. So they genuinely think the entire industry is one job.
And that really goes to the earlier point you made in terms of what the constituents and how they look and what they're made of. Middle class, upper middle class, a certain type of role, a housewife. You know, that is the misconception, but I don't think that is true in reality. And that hasn't necessarily been translated into the PR for the industry.
So we started off with really taking our incredible partners, our publications like Homes and Garden, House and Garden, the Conde Nast publications. We had Elvis previously and so on and so forth and we place our intents there as well. And those are individuals who are very interested in the industry but come from a background of journalism and social media and film and want to pursue that avenue, not necessarily be an interior designer, but do want to work in, you know, at the service of an industry. And I think this is just one other lane. There's going to be, you know, 20, 30 going forward. You have lighting, we're at the rug company. There's, you know, so, so many jobs. And I think, think part of the education to the industry outwards is that, you know, we're not just interior designers in this industry. I definitely am not.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Okay, got it.
And I see that you've been a partner with wowhouse for what this must be your third year now of doing.
[00:28:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: So talk to us about that partnership because that must give you a great deal of elevation too.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's an incredible partnership and we've really loved kind of nurturing that growing has grown year on year. It's a fantastic platform for the charity to sort of just talk about our mission to get that sort of the word out to more people.
You know, we've Besola Evans wrote an amazing sort of guide to diverse makers which the Design centre sort of commissioned and published and, you know, that is available for people to look, if they want to, within their projects to, you know, include pieces and work with diverse makers and artists, which is fantastic. So that's something that we've been able to do with our wow House partnership. Sophie has designed a space there for United in Design, which, which gave huge kind of global reach with regards to the charity.
I designed a room there last year as well and had lots of diverse makers and included in the design of my room. So it's a really wonderful platform. And global platform that has raised an incredible amount of money for the charity to allow us to fulfill our programs.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: And how did it come about? Did you approach them? Did they approach you?
[00:29:33] Speaker C: What happened?
Yeah, I mean, I think we're quite shameless in just going to people saying, please help us.
And I mean, look, we've known those guys for a long time within our own kind of businesses as well. And so we have that sort of relationship with them that we can go to Claire and Simone and say, look, you know, this is us, you know, would you like to get on board? And they very much had of believe in, in what we're doing and I feel have, you know, just having the diversity as well in the designers that are in the wow House is really important.
I know, you know, last year was myself and it was, you know, to Tony Black and you know, even just being there and like seeing her and like, we, you know, you feel like there's this camaraderie and like I say, seeing the diverse demographic of people attending wow House, I mean, I've been going. This is. It's in its fifth year now and year on year, you know, I was amazed because obviously I was there nearly every day last year because I was at my room. So I was seeing everybody that was coming through. And yeah, it just in terms of like, but, you know, cultural background, but age as well. You know, there's like really, really young crowd. We had lots of like school, you know, we had sort of not school kids, but like college age children coming in, looking all the different countries as well there visiting wowhouse has really become a global and international event now, which therefore then is even more important if it's going on a global stage that they see what is essentially the flagship event of our industry being one that does welcome, support and nurture a diverse group of people. I think that's really important that you're putting that out on the global stage. You need your event to reflect that.
[00:31:27] Speaker D: If I may just add to sort of on the. On the wowhouse front.
It is an incredible partnership and I think anecdotally, Jeff, you and I met at.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: We did this is why this conversation.
[00:31:39] Speaker D: Absolutely. And I think that really is emblematic to really what wow House is and what it facilitates for the industry. It is a flagship program within the uk. I think to me, I describe it as a. As my printing come to life and I was like, how can I just carry all these rooms home? But in terms of their impact has been significant. What I've been able to sort of assess and see within the last year of me being there without their sort of sponsorship and the money that is raised from the tickets sale tickets. So if you haven't got your tickets for Wowhouse, please get them for the gala. They're on sale. And also for the Wowhouse coming up in June.
Early on we talked about the impact of the growth of our programs, the scalability that we've had. The more interns, the more mentorship. It is all because there are donors and there are corporates that understand the vision of what we're trying to do, but also understand how important it is for the industry to continue to nurture that, for it to grow and have a larger contribution to the GDP for the sector in the uk. So it's an incredible partnership. We're so grateful to Clara and her entire team and we really are excited to continue to grow that and nurture it for the next few years.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: So talk to us about the money that is raised by the warehouse partnership and what do you do with that?
[00:32:58] Speaker D: Absolutely. There really are the example I feel like the industry should support in terms of facilitating and growing it. So for us it goes directly into scaling our programs.
So majority of it has been sort of gone to a career pathway programs in terms of the software that we purchase, sort of the licenses for that in terms of structuring a repolicy and the policies of how that's going know, go forward. Because we had sort of previously only six individuals in one cohort to change that up, you know, required an upfront investment in addition to that into our mentorship program. It really helps sort of our education outreach. So it's really about making sure that if you know, the money that comes in from them, 100% goes and feeds straight into scaling and growing those program.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah, fantastic. So we're recording this conversation obviously in the fantastic Rug Company showroom. It's just divine in here.
Rug Company are one of your supporters, aren't they?
How can other brands, any other brands or in fact any other listeners to the podcast become involved?
[00:34:05] Speaker D: Oh my God, we love this question. We love it.
So, you know, currently there are three key things that we're doing. The first is, and very, very important is take on an intern. Please take it on an intern.
The government has just come up with a stimulus bill of £1 billion where they will be paying companies to take on interns for six months. So that's incredible. Please utilize what's out there. Our industry often doesn't do that. So I really hope they'll. They'll do that.
In terms of companies taking on interns if they're smaller individuals working in larger companies or have their own businesses and would like to. To mentor, please reach out to us on our website or Instagram and we'll get back to you because we've got loads of mentees looking for mentorship. And third, thirdly, if you are. If you have kids in school who you think you know, are more creatively inclined and would like to learn about the industry, do reach out to us. We've done three schools already this year. We'll bring in an expert and help you demystify what the industry is about. We're also in the process of, hopefully later this year, commissioning a research pie. So you asked about statistics and numbers. I think it's really important. It's an element that seems to be missing in the ecosystem. We were also fundraising for that. So find resources, whether it's knowledge, finances or your networks, please do get in touch. We can do with either.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: And all of them, presumably brands can do that too. So someone like the rug company out there, they could take an intern, just get in touch with you and find ways for them to support you.
[00:35:41] Speaker D: Absolutely, absolutely.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: You know, you were talking about. We touched on the medias, the interiors media, and one of who it was actually said that there could be up to sort of 30 streams.
[00:35:52] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: So are there any other places that you've got any other. Any of those streams in inverted commas that you've got in the pipeline that you think you might expand the internship or the mentoring program into?
[00:36:04] Speaker D: I think that's a really good question. So, anecdotally, we can already think in terms of the partners that we have had in our repertoire and over the last four to five years, and that is like Porto Romana Puki. So that's lighting.
Then we've got. Yeah, so. And then you've got sort of tile companies. We have people who are very interested in fabrics that could go on textile. We have furniture makers, which is where the largest growth in the industry will be in the next three years, statistically speaking. So anecdotally, we have sort of several streams that we're looking at. But really, I think what's important is to understand the lay of the land, of where the jobs are and where the future of jobs are going to be with automation as well, in the fourth Industrial Revolution, with AI, and whether it's ar, you know, tech coming in as well. So part of it is going to be from our experience, and the rest, I think, is going to have to be informed by where the future of jobs are in the industry.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: So are the barriers to diverse interests?
[00:37:00] Speaker D: Is it just a problem in the
[00:37:01] Speaker B: UK or is this something that's a global issue? And Alex, you kind of touched on earlier because you made the point point that in many ways the UK leads the way with this.
Do you have plans to expand globally?
[00:37:16] Speaker C: When we first started, we were approached by a few countries, actually, because, I mean, the way in which it's set up, it could absolutely run in other countries.
And I have lots of friends in the US and they say the same thing, the same issues, the same problems, barriers to entry, et cetera, which is not maybe as prevalent in other countries, is that we have a class sort of issue as well. So you have culture and class, and the two kind of coming together makes it very, very difficult, I think, if you want to work at a certain level within this industry. And again, it's not just about the foot in the door. So the foot in the door is the one thing, but then it's about progression and moving forward in your care.
And it is very, very hard to break into the upper echelons of the career, which is why, you know, some of the lists that have been coming out year on year were devoid of any representation. And it's not just because, you know, there's a lack of black and brown interior designers. There were actually quite a lot of black and brown interior designers, but they were working in the middle section of the industry.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: A glass ceiling.
[00:38:41] Speaker C: There is.
And that is not just because of race and ethnicity. It's also because of class, because to break into the top percent, normally clients at that level hire people that look like them, sound like them, come from the same backgrounds of them, wear the same clothes, dine in the same restaurant. So you've got that as well to kind of be fighting against against.
So there's a lot of work that needs to be done, for sure. And I think it's one of those things where we have seen a huge difference in a relatively short space of time. You can open any magazine now within our industry and see representation on those pages. You can look at those lists and see that they have been been amended, changed so that they are able to feature representation. So you're not able now to just have a list of top interior designers. You'll notice in some of those magazines it's interior designers and architects and makers and garden designers. Because if you actually, as you've said, look across the section of the industry, there is more diversity. If you look in high end residential, high proportion of a certain type of demographic. But then if you look in hospitality, for instance, or in commercial design, it's different again. So in terms of the class issue, you don't see that as much in hospitality and commercial, but you absolutely see in high end resi. So it's really important that uniting design, actually, in terms of all of our different strands, we break into hospitality, we break into commercial, so that we are giving our young people and people that just want to come into an industry at any stage an opportunity to be exposed to those different sectors as well, where they may find a lot more people that come from the same places that they come from.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's a plan to shape United in Designs work for the next number of years.
Any. Any other ideas for changing the face of this?
[00:40:50] Speaker D: So really, I think it's a great question, especially when you ask, ask, you know, is this a prevalent problem globally? And I. You know, operationally, the way we like to think about it is that forget about who we're serving. If you just take that route, totally out of the equation, and you look at the framework of what we're doing, we're just creating a meritocracy in terms of the process. Right. And say, you know, we can't see color, we can't see anything. And all of those sort of attributes, culture, class, you know, all elements that you've mentioned are removed. It is something that there does exist everywhere, wherever there's a dominance of a certain ethnicity and there are minorities that all exist, and the world is more global than it ever has been.
So what we are trying to do is just create a process where that meritocracy exists. Today, minorities may look a certain way, tomorrow they may look a certain way.
The generation after that, they may look a certain way.
So irrespective of the community constituency that we're serving, the really important thing is that we're creating processes, policies and structures for organizations to continue to just be more empathetic, more inclusive, and more equitable for whoever and everyone that we serve. So from that structure, that's how operationally
[00:42:09] Speaker C: we like to look at it.
[00:42:10] Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, we're delighted to be supporting you
[00:42:13] Speaker D: officially as our partners.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: This point always and would urge anybody listening to do exactly the same.
[00:42:19] Speaker D: Yeah, we've just signed on a partnership with Jeff and it's really exciting. It's kind of at the hands of Wowhouse, and we look forward to doing more of these in the future.
Thank you so much.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: Well, thank you for sharing that.
[00:42:32] Speaker C: No, thank you.
It's a wonderful.
It's an incredible charity. And I think just to end it has really just brought the best out of of people. I think ultimately, you know, Sophie and I, that's been the greatest joy, is that you see that the majority of the people actually in this world are really lovely people that are really kind and that want to help. And I think Unite in Design has just given a place for the best in people to really shine through, through the businesses, through the brands that we've worked with, through our, you know, our interior designers. It's, you know, there's something that we can learn. I always say this. There's things that we can learn. Life, you know, you're continually learning and growing and evolving. And, you know, somebody might not look like you will come from the same background as you, but there's something that you can take from that person if you're just open to kind of having that learning. And we have far more similarities than we actually have differences. But the differences are things that should be celebrated and kind of put on a platform to say, this is a wonderful thing for my business. And as we've seen in all the reports and all the McKinsey reports and everything, a diverse workplace is a more profitable workplace, is a happier workplace.
So it makes complete sense for people to have organizations that are reflective of the world as a whole.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: Completely agree. Well, thanks so much, both of you for sharing the United InDesign story with us today. And we wish you every success and future.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:44:08] Speaker D: Thank you so much.
[00:44:09] Speaker C: Excellent.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Thank you so much to Alex and Iman for joining us today. What a wonderful story they've got to share. So positive for the industry. While I've got you, please do check into our YouTube channel, the interior Design Business podcast. It would really help us if you subscribe to our channel. That would be great. And thank you also to our host, the Rug company here in Chelsea Harbour. Amazing showroom. Please do come and visit.
The interior design business is a Wildwood plus production. Thank you.
