'You can't really put the genie back': As corporate America wakes up to its deep-rooted diversity struggles, top CEOs reveal how they're rebuilding their companies around compassion

Collage of CEOs Barbara Humpton, Josh Silverman, Sasan Goodarzi, and Zander Lurie 2x1
Josh Silverman; Zander Lurie; Barbara Humpton; Sasan Goodarzi; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
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In the days after George Floyd's murder, Zander Lurie, who is white, felt a deep desire to understand how racism affected the lives of his employees. So as the CEO of Momentive (formerly SurveyMonkey), he called a meeting.

One Black employee, through tears, told Lurie that every time he leaves the house, he worries it might be the last time he sees his young daughter. "The first challenge for me as a CEO was recognizing that I had my own listening and learning to do," Lurie said. "Those meetings were emotional." 

America's quest to become a more equitable country started centuries ago, but for corporate America, that journey is arguably just beginning. CEOs are posturing differently when it comes to social justice, responding to new pressures from consumers, employees, and investors. 2020 profoundly changed the role of the business leader, CEOs including JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and Chipotle's Brian Niccol have told Insider. Now leaders are at the forefront of a new era in diversity, equity and inclusion — an era with more momentum and accountability.

"The energy around DEI is there now because business leaders can't get away from the conversation anymore," Tiffany Jana, founder of the diversity consultancy TMI Consulting, told Insider. "CEOs said things. They talked about values, and they talked about what they were going to do. They can't unsay it, and we can't unsee it." 

A recent Deloitte survey of 117 American CEOs found that the majority say they plan to develop their focus on DEI. 

Chief executives from Best Buy, Etsy, PwC, and Siemens USA spoke with Insider about their vision for the future of diversity. Making the C-suite more accessible, deepening relationships with communities, and committing to transparency emerged as priorities.

"We're starting to see a focus on diversity from the systemic level," Jana said of CEOs. " These changes have the power to create ripple effects in society." 

Dismantling opaque leadership

Not long after Sasan Goodarzi took the helm of Intuit as CEO in 2019, the leader revealed his personal story during multiple town-hall meetings at the company's different offices.  

An immigrant from Iran, he spoke about being bullied as a kid for his ethnicity. He also spoke about other painful childhood memories, which included witnessing his best friend, a Black boy, repeatedly be called the N-word by white children.  

"I've been very transparent with the whole company around how I felt when I was not feeling included as a child. Now I'm focused on everyone bringing their whole self to work," he said. "That's something no CEO can take away."  

Goodarzi said he embraces today's calls for transparency from leaders, saying it is a legacy he wants to leave with the company. In addition to publicly publishing demographic and leadership data in its annual corporate social-responsibility report, Intuit recently unveiled a dashboard that allows senior leaders to see real-time diversity and inclusion data, promotions, and attrition divided among different demographics factors. 

We're starting to see a focus on diversity from the systemic level. These changes have the power to create ripple effects in society. 
—Tiffany Jana

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman also said transparency will define his plans to advance diversity. In 2020, Etsy made a decision to publish its diversity data alongside its financial data in one integrated annual report. The company increased the number of people of color it hired, with Black and Latinx employees representing about 15% of Etsy's US hires in 2019. But the majority of the company's employees and leaders are white. According to the CEO, the decision to prioritize DEI data in the company's financial report is a way to drive more progress. 

In 2020 and 2021, a swath of companies like Tesla, Boeing, Conde Nast, and PwC published their first DEI reports, finally peeling back the curtain on their workforce data. 

They'll have to continue doing so, according to Alvin Tillery Jr., head of DEI advisory at the CEO consulting firm C Street Advisory. "You can't really put the genie back on that one," he said. "These diversity reports have to be married to a strategy for advancement in order to be successful."

The demand for candor 

Lurie, the Momentive CEO, LinkedIn's Ryan Roslansky, and Siemens USA's Barbara Humpton are among a growing number of leaders whose diversity plans include giving employees a greater voice in decision-making. 

This trend signals that CEOs are making employee voices more of a priority in their leadership style, Tillery noted. "I think that that is the way of the future because it is incredibly valuable work employees are doing," he said. "It does signal that these are institutionalized roles." 

While companies are recognizing employee leaders, they're also integrating them into formal advisory councils. Momentive's CEO launched a Social Impact Advisory Council, an employee group that will consult with him on issues of social justice. Humpton is working on a similar initiative. She is in the process of creating a disability inclusion council, a group of employees that will consult executives on how to make the business more inclusive for people with disabilities. 

CEOs that want to play by older rules are going to have trouble sourcing talent and maintaining talent.
—Alvin Tillery Jr.

"Increasingly, employees of these companies expect their leaders to take a stand on matters of societal importance," Robert Strand, a lecturer at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, previously told Insider.

"What's coming down the pipeline is Gen Z is aging into the workforce. These are people who don't really acknowledge the validity of the old hierarchies. They expect to be consulted. They expect to have their views heard," Tillery said. "So CEOs that want to play by older rules are going to have trouble sourcing talent and maintaining talent." 

Sowing more seeds 

Making a substantial change in America's workforce and in society is a process that "CEOs can't do alone," Tillery said. 

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said she's committed to continuing partnerships with companies and nonprofits. She works with historically Black colleges and universities, local businesses, and investors to support diversity recruitment and youth skill development. She said it's about more than writing a one-time check. 

"The truth is, I think we'll just continue to try to find more ways in which we can advance the ball on inclusion. Because for as much as I'm proud of everything we've done so far, we're still not making enough progress. And I think it's important to say that out loud because it's part of what will continue to fuel the fire going forward."

PwC's US CEO Tim Ryan concurred. He said he looks forward to developing relationships with HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, and community colleges. He's also planning to expand his work with other CEOs. Last year, he created the CEO Action for Racial Equity, an organization in which CEOs commit one employee to work on anti-racist public policy for one year. Over 300 CEOs have signed on so far. 

C-suite reporter Ebony Flake contributed to the reporting of this story.

This story is part of the Future of Executive Leadership project.

DEI Diversity and Inclusion CEOs

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