| Firms perform better when they have a DEI executive |
A measure of corporate effectiveness created by Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker Institute indicates that companies with a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) executive score far better than those that don’t. Thirty-four different metrics were used last year to evaluate 902 large, publicly traded U.S. corporations in five areas: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility and financial strength. Companies are compared in each of these categories, and in terms of their overall effectiveness, through standardized scores with a typical range of 0 to 100 and a mean of 50. The 512 firms that have someone in an explicit DEI role scored, on average, significantly higher in nearly all of the elements of our rankings than the 190 companies lacking such a position: 51.9 vs. 47.7 in customer satisfaction, 53.4 vs. 47.7 in employee engagement and development, 53.0 vs. 46.9 in innovation, 54.0 vs. 46.1 in social responsibility, and 54.1 vs. 46.4 in overall effectiveness. “You need someone with expertise,” says Meredith Benton, the founder of the consulting firm Whistle Stop Capital and the manager of As You Sow’s workplace-equity program. “You need someone who can be a strong advocate on these issues and keep the board updated, just like a chief marketing officer would in their area.”
