Steve Gilbert OBE MA
Turning Anti-Racism Commitments into
Accountable Leadership
Steve Gilbert OBE MA is the founder and Lead Coach of Anti-Racism Leader Coaching, an executive and team dynamics consultant, and a serving non-executive director. For more than 12 years he has worked where racial equity, leadership and governance meet, advising government departments, national charities, NHS bodies, regulators, research institutions and digital health companies on turning commitments on race into decisions, plans and measurable change.
As Vice-Chair of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act under Sir Simon Wessely, Steve co-chaired the African Caribbean working group. He then advised the DHSC and Ministry of Justice Directors Group and wrote the White Paper section on mental health inequalities. He is a trustee of Bipolar UK, a former trustee of Mind, and co-led the Diversity Council at Kooth plc. He was appointed OBE in 2019 for services to mental health.
Steve co-chairs the NHS Race and Health Observatory's Mental Health Advisory Group. As Co-Chair of the National Suicide Prevention Alliance, he works to ensure national strategy centres people from marginalised communities and tackles long-standing inequities in access to care. For six years he has advised Thalamos, which is digitising the Mental Health Act, on technology design that addresses the disproportionate impact of mental ill health on Black and racialised people. He brings the same discipline to leadership teams in any sector
How Steve works
Steve's MA in Consulting and Leading: Psychodynamic Approaches to Systems (University of Essex) gives him a method for what most diversity programmes miss: the unspoken tensions that stall progress on race. He works with what is actually happening in a team and builds its own capacity to carry the work forward.
Why this work matters to Steve
Steve grew up with a Black father and a white mother in a largely white neighbourhood, and saw how racism shaped his family's experience of mental health services. His own lived experience of mental ill health gives him insight into how systems treat people at their most vulnerable, and underpins the calm candour he brings to difficult conversations.
The 3 Cs in practice
We believe that competence, confidence and courage (the 3Cs) are essential for organisations and their leaders to create truly anti-racist futures. Steve's approach isn't theoretical. Before he coached anyone else, he had to confront his own gaps: whether he knew enough to effect change, whether he could make the case with conviction, and the moments he stayed silent when he should have spoken up. He saw the same gaps in the leaders around him, and the 3Cs grew from there, refined through more than a decade of practice.
You know that moment when everyone in the room knows something needs to be said, but no one wants to be the one to say it? That's where Steve lives, in those uncomfortable but necessary spaces where real change begins. He helps leaders build the competence to act, the confidence to speak and the courage not to stay silent. [Explore the 3Cs approach →]
What organisations get
A plan with owners, not a statement of intent. Anti-racism commitments put under proper governance, with milestones and a way of checking they happened.
Leaders who can hold the difficult conversation. Leaders equipped to lead on race when they meet resistance, not just when it's comfortable.
A diagnosis before a prescription. An honest reading of why progress has stalled, so effort goes on causes rather than symptoms.
Ready to close the gap between what your organisation says on race and what it does?
Tell us about your organisation and we will be in touch shortly. We look forward to hearing from you.