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Why Even Forward-Thinking Companies Fail on Diversity and Inclusion
Did the BLM-supporting, pronoun-pin wearing tech company I work have to hire another white guy for the C-suite?
Around this time last year, my company went through the process of hiring a new C-suite exec. Unlike a lot of other tech companies, the one I worked for was all about inclusivity and diversity, at least on the surface. They visibly and financially supported the Black Lives Matter movement; they made accommodations for disabled employees with work-from-home policies (pre-pandemic). We were encouraged to wear pronoun pins during conferences. It was great.
That’s why most of us employees were surprised when the new senior leadership hire turned out to be…another white guy. (The leadership team at that point was composed entirely of men, most of whom were white.) I actually raised this point during one of our town halls with the leadership team. The CEO replied that they’d really looked hard, but the pipeline was simply all white, cishet, able-bodied men.
This was in 2020. There’s no lack of diverse candidates out there, even for leadership roles, although that’s a common misconception: 59% of businesses believe that there is a shortage of diverse candidates. But when our CEO shared his numbers — over…
