Voices: Should the soon-to-be ex-Vogue editor really top the Black 100 Powerlist?

As another Black History Month comes to an end, another Powerlist is out.

The annual ranking of the 100 most influential people of African or African-Caribbean heritage in Britain has been decided by a panel of judges, each a trailblazer in their chosen fields. This year’s chair was Britain’s first Black High Court judge, the Hon Dame Linda Dobbs. Because if you’re going to appoint a judge to a judging panel, get the best.

These Powerlist-brokers decide who makes it by asking “how influential they are in their immediate sphere of expertise“ and “how far that influence spreads beyond that”. They take seven days to look over everything before locking themselves in a room for a full eight hours to decide.

And, apparently, right now, the most powerful Black person is… the former editor of Vogue magazine.

I’ve no particular beef with Edward Enninful, but is he really the best of us? Yes, since he took the helm at fashion’s most powerful magazine, he has put more Black people on the cover, and used it to champion “issues”. Important ones, too: LGBT rights are often sidelined in the Black community, and I don’t underestimated how little Black queer kids will feel seeing Edward at the top of a power list.

But he is also a man on the way out, having lost a not-very-private battle for supremacy with his almighty boss, global chief content officer Anna Wintour. His position on top of the “most powerful” list, at the very moment his power got cut, feels like a valedictory nod rather than a serious attempt at a state-of-the-nation survey of Britain’s Black influencers. And that’s a problem for the rest of us.

Enninful’s place on the Powerlist isn’t the only decision that has caused some controversy. We currently have a mixed-race foreign secretary in James Cleverly, who doesn’t make the list. Kemi Badenoch is the minister for businesss and trade and doesn’t appear, either. The explanation given by the organisers is a simple one: neither had been appointed to the cabinet in time to be considered for this year’s list.

Thank goodness for that. Their exclusion was merely a matter of logistics, not the fact that both of these people belong to a political party that has made life worse for Black Britons, from the Windrush scandal to the steady erosion of hard-fought-for rights of our predecessors.

I would love it if they had appeared. Organising the seating for the awards ceremony would have been a blast. Kemi could have been seated next to Marvin Rees, the Black mayor of Bristol and number four on the Powerlist. He could tell her about the Bristol bus boycott – about how, in 1963, the refusal of transport bosses to employ Black or Asian crews sparked outrage among Bristolians who supported a strike that eventually paved the way for the Race Relations Acts of 1965. She could tell him how she voted in favour of legislation that would see those bus workers criminalised if they have tried it on in 2023. Regression – we just don’t celebrate it enough.

The Powerlist was started in 2006, it says on their website, with the idea of creating role models for Black youngsters, the embodiment of that old adage that “You can’t be what you don’t see”. A noble aim indeed.

However, the list’s reach and application has expanded exponentially since it was launched by Michael Eboda, former editor of New Nation, and is now reckoned as a valuable resource to the corporate world looking for Black talent – especially if what you’re looking for are “change-makers” to come in to your City office and give a rousing speech to the staff during Black History Month.

Running your finger down a list of 100 people’s names is quicker than browsing countless profiles on Linkedin, I suppose. I’m told the networking at Powerlist events is off the scale – but it also helps that many of those named on the Powerlist are already friends with each other.

I like the idea of a Black power list – but one that recognises people beyond the entertainment industry. A common complaint in the Black community is that the only people our kids see “making it” are singers or sporting figures. It’s good to see in the Top 10 people like multi-millionaire recruitment entrepreneur Dean Forbes and Afua Kyei, chief financial officer at the Bank of England – people with careers in the financial sector, people who are actually adulting. They are on their grind, going into the office everyday and working all the hours God sends. Good for them – someone has to. And, let’s be honest, it won’t be me.

I’m told that Kwasi Kwarteng’s name had been discussed for inclusion on the Powerlist, but was rejected – blackballed, you might say. I would have loved him to have won. He was our first Black chancellor and lasted for a full 38 days.

Kwarteng’s appearance on the list would also set a trend. For the Black Powerlist is to top-flight careers what Strictly is to relationships – the final death knell. The nail in the coffin.

Last year’s winner was Sharon White, who became the first Black woman to run John Lewis Partnership. She has since announced she is to leave the high-street retailer following hefty losses, the axing of the staff bonus and the sell-off of 12 stores. White also goes down as the woman who killed off the John Lewis price pledge, "Never Knowingly Undersold".

Fine – but to me, it looks like a Black woman has been set up to fail. Like Enninful, who is “leaving” his current Vogue job to become the brand’s editorial adviser, White is “leaving” at the end of her five-year term – but I know what “stepping down” and “moving on” means in the corporate world. After all, I was “asked to leave” top public school Wrekin College.

To be clear, if it wasn’t already, I would dearly love to be on the Powerlist. But as an entertainer, I don’t deserve to be. Oh, and I just don’t have the right sort of friends to put me there.