BBC's top man heads up diversity council

BBC director-general Mark Thompson is to set up and lead a new diversity leadership council at the corporation.

Speaking at Pearn Kandola's conference, Selling diversity in your organisation, Andrea Callender, the BBC's head of diversity, said diversity at the BBC was spread over 17 divisions and more than 200 initiatives.

Callender, who took up the post in April 2004, said the scheme would draw together these disparate parts and lead the BBC's diversity drive.

"Whatever the culture, work with it rather than positioning diversity as something to go against," she said. "You have to understand the context so that you can understand what really moves people - and it's very rarely the iron-clad business case."