The list of CEOs in the US who are publicly backing their companies’ diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies is growing, according to a Business Insider report.
This comes after several firms such as Meta, Walmart, and McDonald’s rolled back their DEI efforts due to pressure from conservative groups and the White House, the report read.
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One of Trump’s first executive orders after taking office was to place federal DEI employees on administrative leave as work began to dismantle their departments.Deutsche Bank’s CEO Christian Sewing is the latest to publicly support DEI policies. He joins JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon as well.The report quoted Sewing as having said during a Frankfurt press conference that Deutsche Bank was “firmly behind” its DEI programs and that they are “integral” to its strategy.”Quite honestly, I know what diversity has brought us on the management board at the top reporting level,” he said. “That’s why we are strong supporters of these programs.”However, if the legality of DEI programs should ever change, the bank might reevaluate its stance, he added.
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Meanwhile, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said “bring them on” in response to targeting by activist shareholders, in a CNBC interview.
“We are going to continue to reach out to the Black community, the Hispanic community, the LGBT community, the veterans community,” he added.
David Solomon, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs said that while he did hear of shareholder proposals, he hasn’t yet reviewed them.
“We’re advising our clients. They think about these things,” he said in another CNBC interview on January 22. “They think about decarbonization, they think about climate transition. They think about their businesses, how they find talent, the diversity of the talent they find all over the world.”
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said in an interview with Axios that a diverse workforce being better was an inarguable fact.
“In reality, it’s (DEI) made up of 150 different things, and maybe seven of them got a little out of hand,” he said. “I think those six or seven things are going to get solved, and then you’re going to be left with common sense.”
Costco’s new CEO Ron Vachris also supports DEI policies despite receiving a letter from the Republican attorneys general urging him to end the company’s DEI practices which they called “divisive and discriminatory.”
Close to all of its shareholders also rejected a proposal by the National Center for Public Policy Research to end DEI policies.
