Claire Harvey is an experienced senior leader, world leader in diversity, inclusion, and culture and Paralympian. As well as being one of the Co-founders of Schools Inclusion Alliance, Claire currently works as Global Inclusion, Engagement and Wellbeing Lead for TP ICAP.  Previously she was Global Inclusion Lead at Vodafone, after running  her own business supporting large and small organisations all over the world. Previous to this she was Head of inclusive leadership at KPMG. Claire is recognised as being an expert incorporating change management and leadership behaviours into impactful change.  

Professional background 

Claire has a strong professional background in both the public and private sector. She has worked within the criminal justice system, notably as a Prison Governor, managing a resettlement prison and as a riot commander. She also took on the role as the Equality and Diversity Lead for both Prisons and Probation. She later joined the FSA (the UK financial regulator) as Head of Corporate Responsibility and Culture, embedding inclusion, ethical leadership, and positive culture into the supervisory framework across the financial sector.  

As Head of Inclusive Leadership at KPMG, she led the implementation of a new culture strategy, introduced proportional representation in decision making and realigned the staff networks to add value to the strategy implementation. Within 18 months, the organisation rose over 300 places in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index to 10th and was in the top tier of all of equality benchmarks (gender, race, part time workers and disability). Claire also supported the development of the Global UN Women’s Equality Principles toolkit, working with global NGOs, UN Women, and global corporations to create a toolkit that met the needs of all stakeholders and accelerated progress in a meaningful but flexible way.  

Wanting to diversify the organisations she supported, Claire set up as an independent consultant and has supported global large organisations, government agencies, NGOs, charities, universities, and schools all around the world. In 2017, Claire was awarded an MBE for both her services to Sport and to inclusion. She spent a year as Houses of Parliament NED advisor in relation to inclusion and culture. 

As Global Inclusion Lead at Vodafone, Claire embedded inclusion across their global footprint and bring to life their Inclusion for All agenda of leaving no one behind. In this role she has championed inclusion with things like a global parental leave policy, ethnicity global KPIs, a domestic violence policy, racial trauma counselling, a global disability inclusion structure, menopause support and a global LGBT allyship program. 

Still wanting to support inclusion in society more widely, she co-founded the Schools Inclusion Alliance (a not for profit supporting schools to be more inclusive) with Helen Semple, a deputy Head. They are supporting schools to navigate challenges and raising inclusion capability in Schools in UK, USA, Europe, and Latin America.  

Prior to acquiring her disability, Claire had played Rugby Union at the highest level. After taking part in a disability sport talent finder event, Claire took up the sport of Sitting Volleyball in 2010 and in 2012 Captained the first ever Paralympics GB Women’s Sitting Volleyball team. In 2014 she extended her sporting achievements to representing GB in the Athletics World Championships (in the seated throws events). Ranked 4th in the world, she was selected for TeamGB Rio 2016, but had to withdraw due to injury. She is still a core part of the GB Sitting Volleyball team and in 2021, she also became part of the first ever GB Para Ice Hockey squad, as a goalkeeper.