2007 40 Best Companies for Diversity

In our third annual survey, we focus on supplier diversity and senior management representation--how much companies spend with black suppliers and who they let into the corporate suite

Corporations have come a long way from posing questions about the relevance of diversity. Studies and statistics about emerging demographics, minority spending power, and the globalization of the marketplace have moved the discussions well past whether or not a corporation should embrace diversity to how it can make inclusion part of its corporate fabric. There have also been numerous examples of the bottom-line benefits of diversity. In 2006, several of the 500 largest publicly traded companies headed by women outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 index. African American senior executives including Merrill Lynch & Co. Chairman and CEO Stanley O'Neal, Aetna Chairman and CEO Ronald A. Williams, and Time Warner Chairman and CEO Richard D. Parsons have also significantly driven stockholder value in companies that were struggling before they took the helm.

But despite forecasts of continually changing demographics and a variety of success stories, many corporations still struggle with actually making diversity work. It doesn't, however, prevent many of these companies from waving a diversity banner. Since diversity has become one of the biggest corporate trends in recent times, companies have been offering intentions of support but not quite committing to policies, resources, and strategies for effective implementation.

Those companies who are the best at diversity and inclusion understand that challenge and have created the programs, systems, and tracking to make it an integral part of how they do business.

Diversity, when it works, is developed and financed with programs for training and outreach mechanisms to grow contacts and networks. "Once corporations understand it, they support it with initiatives and tactical plans and then people," explains Marlon Cousin, managing partner of the Marquin Group, a diverse executive recruiting firm based in Atlanta. There are many who have good intentions, he offers, but for diversity to be successful, companies have to be willing to change their business approach. "Those who do it right do it consistently, and it's a part of their go-to strategy. They track it, measure it, and commit to being the best in class."