He is the co-founder of Inclusive Boards, a firm specialising in non-executive board appointments. Through his work at Inclusive Boards, they have supported the development of culture change plans for various national governing bodies. Examples include Samuel’s work with the Royal Horticultural Society to help them broaden their audiences, and with sport governing bodies to improve the gender and ethnic diversity on their boards. This work was done without compromising on quality and values. They have worked with over 150 sports governing bodies, including the Rugby Football league, and across sectors. The inclusive boards network has grown to over 50,000 senior leaders across sectors. In 2023, they were named third and public sector recruiters of the year at the National Recruiter Awards.
Samuel’s whole working life has been motivated by public service and a desire to bring about genuine, positive change. He first served his peers as the President of the largest African Caribbean Society at a UK at Brunel University in 2006 and then became the Vice President of the Union of Brunel Students, the first to receive 1000 votes for a contested seat in 2017 aged 19 – in his second year of study. He also served as founding chair of the African Caribbean Alumni Network (A-CAN), representing over 25,000 Black professionals across the UK. As part of A-CAN, he chaired the Great Debate Tour reaching 1000s of Black students every October.
Samuel has extensive senior leadership and board experience, acting as Non-Executive Director at challenger energy firm Ovo’s Foundation arm and under former Prime Minister Theresa May he was a member of the Race Disparity Audit Advisory Board, chaired by Lord Simon Woolley. Samuel is a former district councillor in Hertfordshire and brings extensive knowledge of how local and national government works. He has since left politics.
Samuel has been involved in setting up and growing a number of initiatives to support the progression of Briton’s Black and minority ethnic population. This includes setting up a student network connecting peers with employers whilst at university that grew to 30,000 members. He went on to set up and run a campaign that supported over 8000 start-up businesses. He has won numerous awards including:
As a former district councillor, Samuel was part of the cabinet team that oversaw strategic transformational change. This included the reorganisation of senior leadership, focus on improving scrutiny functions, and development of a one council culture. He has extensive professional experience of working with oversight and scrutiny functions. He was the Vice Chair of the Cabinet Parking & Planning Panel responsible for scrutinising the local plan for future homes across the district. He was also a member of the Resource Overview Committee, scrutinising the annual £26m revenue budget and £1bn capital budget. His work on this committee was to ensure value for money and correct controls were in place as we managed the increasing demands on Local Authority resources.
Samuel recently published a bestselling book ‘The Power of the Outsider’ where he takes the reader on a unique journey to understand what it means to be an outsider and offers up a blueprint for how outsiders can flourish. ITV political editor Robert Peston commented on the book saying “we spend our lives complaining about how insiders have stitched up everything to their advantage. But the biggest winners are often outsiders – who see things others miss and often have superhuman drive. Samuel Kasumu has written an important – and very moving – book about the outsider phenomenon.”
