Name: Hans Vestberg reflects on his role in a changing world
Uploaded: 2020-11-11
Duration: 7 min 41 s
Description: The Verizon CEO details the company's commitment to its employees.

[MUSIC PLAYING] SUSIE GHARIB: Hans, you said that Verizon is fiercely committed to diversity and inclusion, and you say that we all need to do more as corporations. What would you like to see? HANS VESTBERG: With my background, I've lived in seven different countries. I've seen the strength on diversity and inclusion over my years that I've been working, and I think that that's something that's really embedded in the core values of Verizon as well. Because, first of all, our customers are diverse. We need to be diverse as a company, because we are doing better business, and we give everyone an equal opportunity. So I think that is the core basis of it. The other thing, I think, with the latest development in the racial injustice, I think whatever we have done before doesn't really matter. We can say we have done great, et cetera, as a corporation, but the bar has just gone up dramatically for what is good right now. And that's what we need to continue to work with. I think we're working on several different things. And we do outreach to listen to as many people as we can to see that we take all responsibility as a large corporation. Because we have a huge responsibility. We have 135,000 employees. We have a supplier base that is enormous. We connect with more consumers than anybody else everyday in this market. So for us, it's important to see the diversity, this inclusiveness, embedded in everything we're doing, all the way from supply to financing to our own developing careers in the company. But to say that somebody is done or finished, that's not right. We all have a lot more to do to see that we are seeing that we have a really diverse and inclusive world. SUSIE GHARIB: You made a point about all of this when we spoke to Verizon employees right after the murder of George Floyd this summer. And you made a very emotional plea. And you said, we have to stand up to racism. You also directly addressed Black employees at Verizon, telling them they matter, and they have value. And you committed $10 million to racial justice charities. What impact did all that have? HANS VESTBERG: The impact was more about that we continued an open and even more broader debate, internal and external about it. Because it's not about one day, and you do a $10 million investment in this important organization. It's more about that you need to be open for the conversation and listen to things that you don't know or that you actually haven't heard before. For me, coming from a totally different background, it was so important to open up that dialogue and to listen much more than speaking. And that was the kickoff for very many open discussions in our company. But also I've done outreach to many, many leaders in this area and spoken to them and what they think we should do as a corporation and what are the most pressing things that we need to address. SUSIE GHARIB: If you reflect back over these last four months since you made that plea to your employees, are you seeing a change in the way that Verizon employees interact with each other? HANS VESTBERG: Yes. I definitely see the interaction and the openness and also listening to things that you need to know and things that have no words. And partly we are, of course, addressing them. But also speaking to external organizations about how they view the private sector being a part of this. Of course, I've also been very engaged in the Business Roundtable on the subcommittee for racial injustice. So I've spent a lot of time to learn how to bring it back to my organization as well. So I can clearly see that we're moving forward, but no one can even conclude any-- we're done or something. This is a long journey, and we just need to continue with it. And this is embedded in our core values. Diversity, inclusion makes a better company. There's no debate about that. SUSIE GHARIB: Can you single out one important example about what Verizon still needs to work on? HANS VESTBERG: I think that if we look at-- we just released our diversity report. I think we have a fairly good distribution on an overall level as a company, both from a board level and all of that. But there are parts of our middle management that we don't have equally good diversity, and that's something we need to work on. Because we all must reflect our society. We probably have a little bit more males than females than in our society. But other than that, we're a fairly good distribution. But there are areas in the middle of the organization where not enough leaders that are in this diversity. So we find, of course, places we need to do better as well. I think the other thing that we have been working on is, of course, our supply. And we have been very committed to-- to buy from minority-owned businesses. And we just continue to find new areas to do more in. And then we have been working with the bank sector to actually announce the first bond-- that was announced yesterday from Bank of America-- that is directed to minority-owned businesses for Black and Latinos, which we are partnered with to help with. So you can both do externally, and you can do it internally. But there's more to be done, but I think we are seeing progress. SUSIE GHARIB: You mentioned the board of directors. And looking at it, and also your senior leadership, you do have a mix of gender and race, women and people of color. It's not quite 50/50. What more would you like to do there so that you'd be satisfied, and why is it important that you have that proper balance from the very top of the organization? HANS VESTBERG: If I look at all the board, we have a very diverse board. I feel really good about that part. On the management team, we have a very diverse background from a diverse team with very many backgrounds, many nationalities. As you might know, I'm Swedish, and we have many other nationalities on the leadership team as well. I think in general, we are looking for having more females. But on the executive levels, we have actually dramatically improved the last couple of years. But there's always areas to work with. And we're not saying we're perfect. And we will continue work. We are transparent with our diversity report, with all levels of the company, per unit, et cetera, in order for our organization and all our customers and stakeholders to be able to look into us. SUSIE GHARIB: These days, the public looks to the CEOs who run giant American corporations to come up with solutions to all these difficult issues. As one of those business leaders, what do you see as your responsibility to bring about change? HANS VESTBERG: If you look in the hundred largest organizations in the world, and when 65%, 70% of them are large corporations. So our responsibility goes beyond, sometimes, Congress. So of course we have a big responsibility to speak out. But I think that you speak out when it's part of your strategy on something. You move forward. In our case, again, I mean, climate change, digital inclusion, human prosperity is areas that is really what we are driving as a corporation. So I think that's how you need to define it. It's not that it's going to be a lot of different opinions. That is not part of your strategy going forward. That's why talking about racial injustice is obvious for us, because that's part of our strategy, to have a diverse workforce, a diverse customer base, thinking about inclusion, because that's making our company better. 

The Verizon CEO details the company's commitment to its employees.

Hans Vestberg reflects on his role in a changing world

Leadership

Vestberg details the company's commitment to its employees.