'I represent their voices': As Corporate America embraces diversity, this is how some DEI officers see their work

Greg Cunningham, chief diversity officer at U.S. Bank, will always remember 1968. His father’s butcher shop was looted and burned during riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Later that year, his father died of a brain aneurysm at their Pittsburgh home. Cunningham was just 5 years old.

In the time between the fire and his death, Cunningham’s father was denied a bank loan to rebuild his business – a not-uncommon fate for a Black man in the 1960s. A white man named Karl Lutz gave him the money to reopen.

Cunningham’s mother, now 92, made sure her son and his siblings remembered the man’s name and two lessons: “We should never judge people by their race” and “everyone needs an ally.”

When U.S. Bank customers, particularly African Americans, report facing discrimination, Cunningham’s reactions as a Black man and his experiences as a C-suite leader kick in. “I feel terrible,” he says. “I feel even more compelled to come back and make things better.”

Chief diversity officers like Cunningham tackle diversity deficits throughout their companies. They are allies. They spearhead initiatives that may run the gamut from pay equity and supplier relationships to marketing strategies and diversity benchmarks for recruitment, retention and promotion.

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“I think what a chief diversity officer is today is probably very different than how most people see it and historically how people have seen it,” says Cunningham, who also holds the title of senior executive vice president and reports directly to CEO Andrew Cecere. “My job is to represent those who historically have felt like they haven’t had a voice and oftentimes don’t get seen and they don’t have equitable access to opportunity. I represent their voices at the most senior levels of the organization.”

And Americans are seeking that representation.

Americans say representation matters

Survey results from Just Capital, a firm that tracks racial equity at corporations, show that 92 percent of Americans believe it is important for companies to promote racial diversity and equity in the workplace, up from 79 percent in 2021; among Black Americans, the figure is 95 percent.

Facing such expectations, corporate America needs leaders accountable for implementing initiatives and tracking results. Positions in the U.S. dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, have quadrupled in the past five years, according to a November 2022 report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. It found that the rate of new chief diversity officer hires in 2021 was nearly triple the rate 16 months previously, before the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

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Floyd’s death was the catalyst that propelled Amelia Williams Hardy to chief diversity officer at Best Buy, based in the Minneapolis area. An active member of resource groups for Black employees and women since arriving at the big electronics retailer in 2014 from various roles at 3M, Hardy says, “I never had a desire to do (DEI work) full time.”

Then in summer 2020, Hardy says, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry came to her with a proposal for her to move into the DEI space because that’s where she could make the most positive impact at the moment. “I think you can really help us to accelerate our commitment in this area,” Hardy recalls Barry saying.

“My perspective changed after that and living through that racial unrest in real-time,” says Hardy, who has an MBA from Tulane University and a background in marketing and business management. “What better way to marry my purpose, my passion and my profession than moving into the DEI space?”

Hardy became vice president of inclusion and diversity strategic initiatives. Within two years, she was named chief diversity officer and senior vice president, following the promotion of Mark Irvin, who held the chief diversity officer position previously.

“Society has asked corporate America to be more accountable in a way that never happened before, and I believe companies have risen to that call” by putting more resources behind their actions, Hardy says. Because “when companies don’t do that, customers will call you out, or they’ll say they won’t shop with you. Employees will say, ‘I want to choose a different employer. You’re no longer a best place to work.’”

Companies are looking to make change

It’s true that companies are seeking equity at various touch points, but “you can’t move the needle until you understand where it’s moving from,” says Bob Lockett, chief diversity and talent officer at payroll and human resources services provider ADP. “You need to make sure you’re setting realistic goals within an appropriate time frame to achieve certain outcomes.”

ADP, which bills itself as the leader in human capital management, launched a tool in 2021 called the DEI Dashboard, which is available to its clients. The dashboard is designed to help employers monitor and improve diversity in their workforce. “Where DEI efforts have failed in the past is when companies either don’t know the data or they’re trying to ‘boil the ocean,’ so to speak – they’re trying to attack all of the problems at once,” Lockett says.

Common corporate initiatives include unconscious bias training, which Lockett says helps employees “identify and understand any biases they might hold and consciously work to address them,” as well as employee resource groups “to make everyone feel welcome and included,” and increase talent retention.

U.S. Bank’s Cunningham says, “The fundamental around DEI is innovation – not just in the most obvious ways, as you are designing products and services that meet the needs of an ever more diverse community.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DEI work: How diversity officers see their role in Corporate America