Caroline Casey is founder of The Valuable 500. Launched in 2019, the global initiative calls on major corporations to put disability inclusion on the leadership agenda. They now have 334 companies committed to the campaign so far, including Microsoft and Unilever.
Registered as legally blind, Caroline hid her disability from colleagues until she “came out as blind” at age 28 whilst working as a global management consultant at Accenture. Since then, she has campaigned with business leaders to reform outdated attitudes towards disability in the workplace; setting up the Ability Awards, speaking on the Ted Talks stage and starring in a National Geographic documentary.
In this in-depth conversation, Caroline argues that an “inclusive business creates an inclusive society” as she outlines the full scale of the global inequality crisis; explains the stigma surrounding disability in the corporate world, and how in her opinion, the fear of getting things wrong is holding us back from change; and discusses the boundaries she’s had to push and the industry leaders she’s had to empower to fight for equality for a global community constituting 1.3bn people.
