This is how CMOs can contribute to DE&I efforts

Over the past five years, organizations have placed a greater emphasis on filling newly-created DE&I executive positions. In fact, DE&I job openings reached an all-time high at the beginning of March 2020 with over 1,000 jobs available on Glassdoor. These job postings spiked 55% in June 2020 after George Floyd’s murder. Today, there are 16.2% more diverse executive team members than this time last year. 

But many stakeholders, from employees to consultants to academics, feel that due to a variety of barriers, these new leaders haven’t been able to get their DE&I plans in motion fast enough and therefore, organization-wide impacts aren’t immediately clear. According to a 2021 report, Elevating Equity: The Real Story of Diversity and Inclusion, “Roughly 80% of companies are just going through the motions and not holding themselves accountable.”