In multicultural Australia, corporate boardrooms are still overwhelmingly white Anglo-Saxon

In the past decade or so there has been a highly publicised push to increase the representation of women in Australia's boardrooms.

Nearly 30 per cent of directors at top-200 companies are now women and, for the first time, half of all new director appointments are women.

The tide is turning.

But while gender diversity has grabbed corporate attention, cultural diversity appears to be still well off the radar.

"Anyone that sounds different, behaves different, or has somewhat different views — which is the point of diversity and the strength of diversity — it can be a little hard to get into the club," the chairwoman of the Asian Australian Foundation, Cheri Ong, told the ABC.

Workplace inequality illustrated

Fewer large Australian companies are run by women than are run by men named John. Or Peter. Or David.

A look at the statistics bears out Ms Ong's point.

In the past few decades Australia has become a very different country.

Only 58 per cent of Australians still have British roots; 18 per cent are European; 21 per cent non-European; and 3 per cent of Australians are Indigenous. Read more

Andrew Robertson - ABC News - 2 October 2018