The chief executive of Cargill, David MacLennan is one of the business leaders signing on to the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, a collaboration between more than 150 CEOs pledging to make their companies places where diverse experiences and perspectives are welcomed and employees feel empowered to discuss inclusion and diversity.
The initiative was launched today with CEOs representing more than 50 industries, representing millions of employees worldwide, committing to tangible action to address diversity as a pressing social issue.
“As leaders we need to do more to open doors,” said MacLennan. “Diverse teams deliver better business results and can create connections beyond the workplace that foster better understanding and more connected communities.”
Cargill, a global agriculture, food and nutrition company with a poultry processing business in the UK, is joining the CEOs of Procter & Gamble and HP and other organisations. A full list can be found at www.CEOaction.com. These leaders have pledged to take three initial action steps to catalyse progress:
- Continue to cultivate workplaces that support open dialogue on complex, and sometimes difficult issues surrounding diversity and inclusion, so that colleagues gain greater awareness of each other’s experiences and perspectives.
- Implement and expand unconscious bias education to eliminate potential blind spots.
- Share best known—and unsuccessful—actions in order to help each other build and improve diversity strategies.
In recent years, Cargill has made progress advancing inclusion and diversity. Joining CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion is just the latest milestone. In recent months:
- Cargill became a founding member of Paradigm for Parity, a coalition of more than 40 companies that pledged to achieve gender parity in management by 2030.
- The company received a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign’s 2016 Corporate Equality Index.