PEOPLE
35 %
Increased odds that a company in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity will have above-average financial returns
SOURCE : MCKINSEY & COMPANY
born and raised in the United States , I ’ ve experienced firsthand racial and social inequities . But that doesn ’ t make me a victim , it ’ s made me bolder , braver , resilient , and it has made me strong . It ’ s taught me perseverance . It is , in part , why I do the work I do .
I come from a legacy of strong , determined men and women . At 40 , my grandmother went back to school and got her master ’ s degree in education so that she could teach — she saw the inequities in the education system . Each of her siblings were standouts in their respective career fields . My grandfather and his brothers started their own trucking company when they realized they were being left out of lucrative opportunities and denied the better hauling routes . They learned how to repair their own trucks because mechanics would intentionally delay working on their vehicles to give non-minorities the upper hand . So they learned how to fix their vehicles themselves . Some were entrepreneurs by choice , others by necessity . But they were all problem solvers . That was passed down to my parents and my siblings and me .
Dinnertime at my home was centered around conversation about our day , our friends , activities , and talk of what we learned in school . It was normal for my parents to edit and add commentary to the backdrop of what we were being taught , be it US history , Black and African American achievement and the civil rights movement , or even home economics . Sadly , biases and microaggressions permeated the mindsets of educators , so it was a constant consideration of which battle they chose to address with the school administration .
Racial inequalities have long been the large purple elephant in the room , but to be more competitive and innovative as a nation , we must be more racially , ethnically , and culturally inclusive . In addition , we ’ re leaving Black / African American and other people of color out of economic growth opportunities as a result of not having a seat at the table in the tech industry . While you ’ ll see pockets of hope , the tech industry has not been a leading sector . And these are the innovators , the visionaries , the early adopters , so you think , Why isn ’ t the tech industry leading on this ? You ’ d think there would be a different level of openness . But there isn ’ t . While African Americans are 13 % of the US population ,
in 2018 the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that just 3.5 % of engineers and other professionals in computer and electronics manufacturing were Black , and just 1.7 % of tech executives were Black men and women , as compared to the 77 % who were white men and women .
Whole groups of people aren ’ t being welcomed in and it ’ s still not fair or equitable . Companies across the board , including HP , have a lot more work to do , from executive leadership to the rank-and-file workers . For example ,
3.7 % of Google employees and contractors are Black and 5.9 % are Latinx , while
3.8 % and 8.7 % of HP ’ s workforce are Black / African American and Latinx , respectively . Nvidia ’ s workforce is just 1 % Black , and Snapchat ’ s is 4 %. There have only been
18 Black CEOs or chairpersons of a Fortune 500 company ( and of those
just two were women ), and currently there are five . In the corporate context , it hasn ’ t been easy to talk about racial injustice , but the current Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd have given us the space to raise the topic , and the very top of our company has made commitments to act .
HP ’ s CEO Enrique Lores announced earlier this year that HP will double the number of Black executives by 2025 . HP also launched an employee-led Racial and Social Equality Task Force that will work on issues around policies internally , in the industry , and at a local and national level to help promote racial equity . No single business can solve this problem , but HP ’ s commitment goes back to the early days of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard . Packard set in motion programs that brought minorities into the company because that
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