Deborah Williams

Creative Diversity Network

Deborah Williams has over 30 years’ experience in the arts and has created and run equality and diversity programmes for Arts Council England and the British Film Institute. She works to challenge stereotypes and inaction about diversity and creates tangible systemic change to increase representation in the arts and creative and cultural industries. She explains:  “Being the ultimate other, enables me to practice what I preach about diversity being core to creative success in business or pleasure.”

In the year 2000 Deborah founded the production company, Reality Productions, as the lead artist she produced and toured works internationally.

Deborah has been formally recognised in the House of Commons for her work at the BFI by the Minister for Culture, Ed Vaziey. This year Deborah has given evidence at the House of Lords Communications select committee on the public service broadcasting in the age of video on demand.

Since 2016 Deborah has been the Executive Director of the Creative Diversity Network (CDN), which works to improve diversity across UK broadcasting in front of the camera and behind it, and has membership from all UK broadcasters. Under Deborah’s leadership CDN developed Diamond, a world-leading monitoring system that allows media companies to collect diversity data on their programmes. Diamond is already used by most UK broadcasters and has prompted CDN’s ‘Doubling Disability’ project which aims to double the percentage of disabled people off screen in the industry by 2020.  

Deborah is a world-renowned keynote speaker. Over the past year she has spoken internationally in Berlin at the Berlinale and in Australia at the Fair Play symposium. She has also worked on the Ubumuntu Arts Festival, which showcases the work of disabled artists in Rwanda.

creativediversitynetwork.com