Vivian Hunt

Dame Vivian Hunt DBE
Headshot of Dame Vivian Hunt in 2022
Born	Vivian Yvonne Hunt July 1967 (age 56–57) Cleveland, Ohio
Nationality	British/American
Education	Harvard College; Harvard Business School
Occupation	Business Executive
Board member of	Harvard Board of Overseers, Teach First, Black Equity Organisation, The British Museum, The Southbank Centre
Spouse	Nicholas Basden

Dame Vivian Yvonne Hunt DBE (born July 1967) is a business executive and a recognised advocate for equal opportunities across business and society. She is the Chief Innovation Officer of UnitedHealth Group, which is listed 5th in the Fortune 500. She previously served as a senior partner for consulting firm McKinsey & Company, providing strategic advice to leading firms in the private, public and third sectors. She also served as managing partner for the UK and Ireland for seven years.

She is the Chair of Teach First, the UK's leading education charity, and Black Equity Organisation, the UK's first national Black civil rights organisation. She previously served as the Chair of BritishAmerican Business.

She was named one of the ten most influential black people in Britain by the Powerlist Foundation, and one of the 30 most influential people in the City of London by The Financial Times.

She was awarded a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, in Queen Elizabeth's 2018 New Year Honours for “services to the economy and women in business”.

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Early life and education

Vivian Hunt was born in Cleveland, Ohio and has two brothers. During her childhood, she and her family lived in the United States of America and in Japan. She attended the Concord Academy in Massachusetts and graduated in 1985.

Hunt graduated from Harvard College in 1989, after which she joined the Peace Corps where she worked in Senegal in a midwifery practice as a primary care worker for over two years before attaining an MBA at Harvard Business School in 1995.

She has honorary doctorates in law from the University of Warwick, the University of York and the University of Portsmouth and an honorary Fellowship from University College London.

Career

McKinsey & Company

In 1995, Hunt joined consulting firm McKinsey & Company's Boston office before transferring to the United Kingdom and Ireland office. Hunt was appointed Managing Partner of the UK and Ireland offices in 2013 and served in that role for seven years. Previously, she led the company's Life Sciences EMEA division for eight years. Hunt also served on McKinsey's global Board of Directors, Professional Standards, Finance and several personnel committees.

In 2019, Hunt led the relocation of McKinsey's London office to the Post Building, formerly the Royal Mail sorting office, in London's Knowledge Quarter, in a move to modernise and co-locate with other leading analytic-savvy companies. The project won the 2022 British Council for Offices' Fit Out of Workplace award.

UnitedHealth Group

Hunt joined UnitedHealth Group, Inc., as its Chief Innovation Officer in October 2022. UnitedHealth Group is a health care and well-being company with a mission to help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone through two distinct and complementary businesses. Optum delivers care added by technology and data, empowering people, partners and providers with the guidance and tools they need to achieve better health. Unitedhealthcare offers a full range of health benefits, enabling affordable coverage, simplifying the health care experience and delivering access to high-quality care.

Multistakeholder Capitalism, ESG and DEI

Hunt advocates for stakeholder capitalism and has led a research and evidence-based approach to ESG and DEI. She delivered a TEDTalk on How businesses can serve everyone, not just shareholders, which received over 1.5 million views. She has made a business case for sustainable fashion in a talk that highlights the scale of the challenge and the importance of action for the Business of Fashion Voices 2021. She is a founding co-author of McKinsey's four Diversity Matters publications and co-authored the first Women in the Workplace report, the largest comprehensive study of the state of women in corporate America. In 2018, she spoke at The Financial Times's Women at the Top Summit on how inclusive leadership leads to inclusive growth. She also contributed to The Wall Street Journal bestseller, To The Top: How women in corporate leadership are rewriting the rules for success, authored by Jenna Fischer.

In January 2018, she was criticised by The Times when it was revealed that McKinsey & Company paid its women employees salaries that were 24% less than male employees and bonuses that were 76% lower than men despite Hunt having received her DBE for services to women in business. McKinsey clarified that it paid men and women in equivalent roles the same amount, but that it had a disproportionately high number of men in senior roles.

Charities, Boards and Philanthropy

Hunt has served on the boards of multiple charities, art, culture and education institutions, including the Harvard Board of Overseers, the British Museum, the Southbank Centre, the Confederation of British Industry, and, previously, Business in the Community.

Since 2019, she has been the Chair of Teach First, whose Patron is His Majesty The King. Teach First fights to make the education system work for every child, by training talented teachers, equipping school leaders and giving children with the fewest opportunities access to a great education.

Hunt is the co-founder and Chair of the Black Equity Organisation, an independent Black civil rights organisation created to dismantle systemic racism in Britain. In the role, Hunt is leading the fight for the key issues that affect the Black community and ensuring Black voices are heard through programmes such as Shaping the Future of Black Britain, an initiative to ensure Black voices are front and centre in shaping the future of our country through voting and the Black Britain's mandate. She participated in a conversation with 5 News on the presence of racism in a wide range of areas, including health care, education and the criminal justice system.

She is the founding member and Chair of Generation UK, a non-profit that trains people with social and economic disadvantages and takes a skilled-based approach to placing them into jobs. She previously served on the US-UK Fulbright Commission, the Trilateral Commission, BritishAmerican Business, the Confederation of British Industry, the Royal Academy of Arts, the University of Oxford Said Business School (BLC) and other UK governmental bodies.

Personal life

She is married to Nicholas Basden, and they have two sons. She is a British and American citizen.

Honours

Hunt was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in Queen Elizabeth's 2018 New Year Honours for "services to the economy and to women in business". In 2019, she received the Chartered Management Institute's Gold Medal Award and Business in the Community's Gender Champion Award. In 2022, she received the Strategic Management Society's Lifetime Achievement Award.

External links

• Vivian Hunt talking on "Why Diversity Matters".
• Vivian Hunt TedTalk on "How businesses can serve everyone, not just shareholders".
• Dame Vivian Hunt Concord Academy Commencement Speech 2018
• Dame Vivian Hunt speaking at One Young Worlds 2021 Summit