Kevin Dainty is client relationship manager for Reed Technology, part of the 2000 person recruitment company Reed (established 1960), responsible for working with customers, to help them achieve their business objectives, utilising Reed’s portfolio of talent attraction solutions including those of it’s consultancy arm www.consultancyplus.org, enabling them to build diverse and inclusive teams.
Kevin looks beyond the provision of technology talent and challenges his clients to think about both talent development and retention as key elements to creating a diverse workforce. Kevin is a keen proponent of sharing best-practice and utilises his role to compile the experience of his clients for the benefit of his wider network. See https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/strategies-developing-diverse-workforce-kevin-dainty/
Kevin’s passion for championing women, stems from his personal life, raised by a single mother, with 3 sisters and 7 nieces, but was ignited during the 8 years (2012-2020) he spent running Reed’s technology senior appointments practice. During this period businesses became more conscious of their lack of diversity and enlightened to the value diverse teams can deliver.
Seeing organisations truly motivated to change, inspired Kevin to educate himself on how he and Reed could support these journeys. He surrounded himself with experts, attending forums such as The Tech Talent Charter, leading to him directly contributing to a number of external initiatives, providing video content for the Inspiring Girls Video Hub and the Tech She Can in Schools Programme, and speaking at external events, beginning with one of Kevin’s contacts asking him to step outside of his comfort zone and speak on how startups can design inclusive recruitment processes, for the inaugural WEDS (We/Women Empower Diverse Startups) meetup in October 2019.
Kevin’s first d&i initiatives was to set up the -The Technology Role Models Youtube channel. Used to share content designed to inspire more people from diverse backgrounds in to technology careers. Although accessible to all, it’s primary audience is 12-16 year olds, who are reached through Reed’s 5000+ network of education clients. A recent series on this channel showcases a diverse range or female tech leaders through audience Q&A led interviews.
Since setting up the Reed Women in Technology Community in 2019, Kevin has dedicated time to this every single day, along side his day job and built the community to 2,700 members in 44 countries (including 600 mentors). Helping create 1,400 mentoring relationships along the way.
Kevin is always looking for opportunities to partner with and support other organisations. These include:
-Being an Advocate for www.blackgirlsintech.org serving in an advisory role to this start-up, helping them with the mechanics of becoming a registered not-for-profit organisation, helping them to promote their mentoring programme and utilising his network of diversity conscious employers to secure sponsorship and funding for their series of bootcamps and outreach programmes.
-Working with STEM UK to recruit stem ambassadors and launch a new project promoting careers in IT Service Management.
