The OneTen initiative is partnering with Guild Education to upskill Black Americans

I’ve written here before about the OneTen initiative, a coalition of companies pulled together by former American Express CEO Ken Chenault and former Merck CEO Ken Frazier to upskill and hire one million Black Americans into good jobs over the next decade. Today, the group is announcing a partnership with Guild Education, to help with the upskilling piece. Guild will provide OneTen companies access to its learning marketplace, which includes both courses and coaches. Among the many schools it works with, Guild now includes HBCUs including Spelman College, Morehouse College and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Guild’s training programs kick in only after a person has been hired by one of the participating companies. But Chenault told me yesterday that OneTen is working with member companies to change their job specifications so they can hire more people without college degrees, and then use Guild’s programs to upskill them while on the job. The effort is yet another sign that the post-George Floyd emphasis on corporate diversity is being pursued with more resolution and creativity than in the past.

By the way, the partnership between OneTen and Guild is not entirely surprising. Chenault, who is now chairman of General Catalyst, said General Catalyst was the lead investor in Guild’s Series D financing round and he sits on the board.

Separately, I wrote yesterday about Kyndryl, the IBM spinoff. Later in the day, I spoke to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who said that while the spin leaves IBM a smaller company—Kyndryl accounted for just under a third of its revenue—it also leaves IBM poised for growth. “I believe with complete confidence that I now have the pieces I need to sustainably grow this business in the mid-single-digits annually.” Investors will be glad to hear that. As for the future, IBM is continuing to develop A.I., and continuing its big bet on quantum computing. “We will have a 1,000 qubit quantum computer by late 2023,” he said. Still remains to be seen how Quantum computers will be used to solve business problems.

More news below. And take a minute to read Grady McGregor’s piece about how the crazy Shiba Inu meme coin made one warehouse manager a millionaire. (Warning:  this story is for subscribers only. Newsletter readers can get a discount here, using the code CEODAILY.)

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

Correction: This essay was updated on Nov. 5 to correct the spelling of Chenault’s name.

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This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.