Truly having diversity in an organization is more than just hiring people from underrepresented groups; it means elevating those individuals to the highest ranks, panelists on a recent DEI webinar hosted by The Executive Leadership Council, a not-for-profit group promoting the advancement of Black leaders, said.
The real sea change in diversity efforts will be when Black and Brown professionals are moved into C-suite and director positions, said Executive Leadership Council President and CEO Michael Hyter, the webinar’s moderator.
“I don’t think people are as deliberate about that journey as they are about representation,” Hyter said.
In 2022, only six CEOs, or 1%, of the Fortune 500 were Black. In its nearly 70-year history, the Fortune 500 has only had 24 Black chief executives, Fortune said.
To see more advancement, corporate America will need to work together to build sustainable equity both inside and outside of its walls, said Google Global Chief Diversity Officer Melonie Parker.
“We have to do that as a collective because no one company or organization is going to do it. We have to do this in lock step,” Parker said.
A recent study found that markets had an average return of 3.1% after the appointment of a Black CEO.
Seung-Hwan Jeong, an assistant professor of strategic management at the University of Georgia and one of the co-authors of the study, said investors appreciate and understand the higher bar that Black CEOs face to get to their positions.
“Throughout the course of their careers and in their personal lives, Black professionals face a lot of barriers, and they have to overcome a lot. So the Black executives who do make it to the very exclusive position of a CEO, we just find are very exceptional in many ways,” Jeong said.
Compared to white CEOs, Black executives have more years of education and are more likely to have advanced degrees and degrees from elite institutions, the study found.
Parker highlighted the need to normalize Black talent to ensure more equity at all stages of an organization.
“If Black talent continues to be a unicorn that is elusive and we can’t find, if that’s the belief system, we’ll continue to have this problem,” Parker said.
