• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
LeadershipraceAhead

The CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion Turns Two

Ellen McGirt
By
Ellen McGirt
Ellen McGirt
Down Arrow Button Icon
Ellen McGirt
By
Ellen McGirt
Ellen McGirt
Down Arrow Button Icon
June 8, 2018, 12:20 PM ET
Photograph by Rebecca Greenfield for Fortune
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

It’s been one year since the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion launched, the largest ever cross-industry commitment to advance diversity in the workplace.

“Some days it feels like ten years,” laughs Tim Ryan, the U.S. chairman of PwC.

Ryan first proposed the idea in 2016, after a series of police shootings compelled the company to engage in serious internal dialog about race in America. The results of the candid convenings were eye-opening for Ryan and his executive team – while some people felt afraid outside the firm, plenty of people also felt invisible inside. That experience encouraged Ryan to connect with a like-minded group of CEOs, many of whom were competitors, to look for solutions at scale.

The consortium launched last June with 175 CEOs – including Fortune 500 stalwarts Cisco, Dow Chemical, HP, The Home Depot, Merck, Morgan Stanley, Staples, Target, and Walmart. They committed to advancing the cause of diversity in three areas: Creating a safe workplace environment for dialog, addressing and mitigating unconscious bias, and sharing best practices. “From the very beginning, we were thoughtful in how we approached the commitment to attract a broad group of companies, beyond those that already have significant programs place,” Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, an early organizer of the effort, told Fortune. “Our focus is not on metrics, but creating a forum that will help many companies benefit from sharing their experiences, both successes and failures.”

Today, the alliance has more than 450 CEOs, and every month, another 20 sign up. There are also some 500 best practices shared on the site, freely available to anyone who needs them.

It’s been a busy first year. The group met in person for a day-long CEO summit last November, and in January, PwC hosted 220 chief human resource and diversity officers in New York to dig further into the issues they were facing.

They’ve also launched a branded mobile unit that’s visited 13 universities and seven companies so far. The “Check Your Blind Spots” unit is a traveling inclusion experience which has trained 5,000 people in a gamified version of a bias-mitigation curriculum. A new “tour” starts this July, and Ryan has set a lofty goal for of 100 site visits and a million people trained for their second year. “We’ve already got 30 companies signed up,” he says.

Something seems to be working. Half of the CEOs responded to an end-of-year survey and gave the program high marks. “Seventy-eight percent of the CEOs said it has had a positive impact on the D&I in their organizations,” says Ryan. Eighty-nine percent said they are now having “difficult conversations” about race and inclusion in their workplaces, 89% said they had or were in the midst of implementing unconscious bias training, and some 58% said they were leveraging their new peer network to help them address their inclusion needs.

That last one is key, says Ryan. “We really get into the weeds, and talk about the big issues.” Including the practical ones, he says. “This is a place where you can say ‘I don’t know how to calculate a pay gap,’ and get the answers you need.”

Based on these successes, Ryan is announcing today that PwC will spend $10 million underwriting year two.

“Overall, we’re on the journey,” he says. He’s been buoyed by the fact that people are beginning to see how biases are embedded in both people and systems and that they have the power to address that.

Even PwC. They’ve learned that the company may need to re-think how they’ve been “deploying” people into their first jobs at the firm, for example. It’s a crucial moment: if you set someone on the wrong path, it could impact their earning and development potential for the rest of their careers.

“Those decisions – those first assignments – have always been done by partners spread out all over the country. We had to ask, could there be inherent biases there?” The solution they’re considering is to make those recommendations from the central office, a decision that would have looked to the partners like an inexcusable power grab from the mother ship. Now, they’re open to the idea. “So we’re having a conversation about how we can be more equitable in how we allocate responsibilities,” says Ryan. “We couldn’t have had that conversation a year ago. People get what we’re trying to do and want to do the right things.”

 

About the Author
Ellen McGirt
By Ellen McGirt
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Leadership

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in Leadership

buffett
SuccessWealth
‘The man who dies rich dies disgraced’: The last time America had such wealth inequality, Andrew Carnegie knew he had to give it all away
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
11 hours ago
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
SuccessBillionaires
Larry Page and Sergey Brin splash $225 million in Miami property as billionaires flee California’s tax—and Google is expanding its office there too
By Emma BurleighJuly 22, 2026
12 hours ago
Warren Buffett called Bill Gates’ Epstein ties ‘distasteful’ and pulled out of the Gates Foundation. Days later, a review revealed 30 meetings
North AmericaWarren Buffett
Warren Buffett called Bill Gates’ Epstein ties ‘distasteful’ and pulled out of the Gates Foundation. Days later, a review revealed 30 meetings
By Sydney LakeJuly 22, 2026
13 hours ago
Jon Gray leans while talking and sitting in a chair
SuccessCareers
Blackstone president Jon Gray tells Gen Z to think like founders at work—but a growing number are skipping the corporate ladder to become one for real
By Preston ForeJuly 22, 2026
13 hours ago
clark
North AmericaMedia
Ryan Clark found out he was fired live, mid-broadcast, on NFL Live as ESPN undergoes first major layoffs in 3 years
By Joe Reedy and The Associated PressJuly 22, 2026
14 hours ago
A woman observes stock trends on her smartphone while a computer screen displays financial graphs.
NewslettersCFO Daily
Beyond SpaceX: Why great IPOs depend on more than first-day demand
By Sheryl EstradaJuly 22, 2026
15 hours ago

Most Popular

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
Real Estate
The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
11 hours ago
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
Success
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
2 days ago
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
AI
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
By Eva RoytburgJuly 21, 2026
1 day ago
OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
Cybersecurity
OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
By Jeremy Kahn and Emily ForliniJuly 21, 2026
1 day ago
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
Success
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
By Emma BurleighJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion
Success
‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion
By Sydney LakeJuly 20, 2026
3 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.