A VETERAN lawyer and boardroom leader, Moni Mannings has built a reputation as one of Britain’s most prominent advocates for greater diversity in leadership and public recognition.
She was appointed the independent chair of the new Honours Diversity and Outreach Committee in July 2025, placing her at the centre of efforts to make Britain’s honours system more representative. Her five-year term runs until 2030.
Speaking about the role, Mannings said the honours system is “one of our nation’s most visible mechanisms, not only for celebrating individual contribution but also for promoting our society’s values.” Recognising excellence from all walks of life, she added, “isn’t just a symbolic act. It is how we tell our national story.”
Her work with the committee builds on years of championing diversity in corporate leadership. In 2021 she founded EPOC, a not-for-profit network focused on increasing the number of people of colour on boards across Britain. The organisation continued its work through 2025, hosting events with partners including KPMG. In October, EPOC held a gathering focused on sport sector boards, bringing together panellists and industry leaders to share opportunities and discuss how to level the playing field.
Mannings has spoken candidly about the barriers she encountered while building her own career. “There were very few women, there were certainly no women of colour,” she recalled. “But even more than that, so few people from working class backgrounds, which actually felt like an even bigger barrier.”
Of Pakistani Muslim heritage and raised in a working-class migrant family, she arrived in England at the age of eight. She was the first person in her extended family to attend a British university.
She began her career as an associate at Clifford Chance from 1986 to 1995, before moving through Simmons & Simmons and Dewey Ballantine. In 2000 she joined Olswang LLP, where she rose to become senior partner in March 2016.
Since stepping back from full-time legal practice, Mannings has built an extensive non-executive portfolio, comprising roles at easyJet, Hargreaves Lansdown, Investec Bank, Polypipe Group, Dairy Crest Group, Breedon Group and Cazoo.
Mannings currently serves as senior independent director at the FTSE 100 property company Land Securities Group and The Co-operative Group. She is also a member of the Takeover Panel, the independent body that oversees corporate takeover bids in the UK.
Her charitable work has been equally significant. Mannings served as deputy chair of Barnardo’s from 2017 to 2022, sat on the board of Cranfield University for nearly six years and was a board member of Funds for Women Graduates, which supports women undertaking doctoral research. She is currently a trustee of the St Mark’s Hospital Foundation.
In the New Year Honours in 2024, Mannings was awarded an OBE for services to cultural philanthropy, business and charity.
She is married with two adult daughters and, away from work, is an enthusiastic traveller who recently fulfilled long-held ambitions to visit Antarctica and the Galápagos Islands.
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