EDI Case Study resource 2025

Spotlight on growth, investment, mergers and acquisitions

The nature of IHPN membership is that many of the organisations are not static – they are either growing at pace, seeking investment which often comes with new cultural priorities, or combining with other organisations where two cultures are being combined.

  • One IHPN member shared how EDI was not something, the company initially had to work at. As a small organisation where everyone ‘got it’, the managers were already open-minded and innately understood how to be inclusive, organically with no policies. As the firm grew, this dependency on the naturally inclusive approach became more challenging – there were people with specific needs applying and being recruited that they did not have the infrastructure to support, and it was hard to ensure that organic inclusion so it was necessary to create more structures and processes to support the underlying culture.

  • Acquisition can work both ways. We spoke to one organisation that had been acquired twice in short succession and was now owned by an investor that had values based priorities. This was a huge positive as the cultural steer of the overarching group flowed down. Another IHPN member described how interested its investors were in issues like diversity, environment and community and how this then flowed through into the way the organisation prioritised.

  • We spoke in confidence to another IHPN member that had started life balanced – with a female CEO, balanced board (in fact, four women out of seven) and a very specific culture driven by the primarily NHS customer base. However after the acquisition, there had been a significant cultural shift driven by a large swing in the gender balance and background of the executive team.