A Look Back at 2021

Our coalition of companies is committed to providing tangible, innovative solutions to historical shortcomings in the diversity and inclusion space. This partnership has an exponential effect — and helps us drive change across industry at a much faster rate, because, as they say, there is strength in numbers. In our inaugural eight months of calendar year 2021, both meaningful and measurable progress was made.

Summary of our 2021 accomplishments:

April: The Alliance, initially formed in 2020, was launched publicly on April 29, 2021, with founding commitment partners Dell, Intel, Nasdaq, NTT Data and Snap, Inc., announcing it had developed a shared set of diversity and inclusion metrics based on a global survey launched in 2020 to determine the status of diversity and inclusion progress. The Alliance also shared it would focus on making progress in four critical areas: leadership representation, inclusive language, inclusive product development and STEM readiness in under resourced communities.

May-July: The Alliance established four workstreams to work on the goals: leadership representation, inclusive language, inclusive product development and STEM readiness in under resourced communities.

August: The Alliance applauded the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its approval of Nasdaq Stock Market LLC’s proposed rule changes related to board diversity and disclosure, in which each Nasdaq-listed company, subject to certain exceptions, will be required to have at least two diverse board members, or explain why it does not. New listing standards also require aggregated disclosure of information on voluntary self-identified gender, racial characteristics and LGBTQ+ status of the public company’s board of directors.

November

  • Celebrated Snap and the newly formed Catalyze Tech for their commitment to collectively focusing on measures to improve diversity, equity and inclusion across the tech sector in Silicon Valley. The Alliance is proud to be an official signatory, along with a host of companies, non-profit organizations and researchers, to the Action to Catalyze Tech Report (ACT Report), which provides CEOs and tech companies with a rigorous framework of action around diversity, equity and inclusion.
  • Commitment partners from Intel, Micron and NTT Data led a panel discussion on “Accelerating Diversity and Inclusion with Collective Action” at the i4CP Next Practices Now conference for human resource leaders and highlighted how we must be transparent with our data to hold ourselves accountable, integrate diversity and inclusion into our systems and processes, and convene the industry to drive inclusive practices.

December

  • Commitment partners from Intel and Nasdaq led a panel discussion on “Making Progress Real for Women in Tech” at the Women in Technology International (WITI) 2021 Digital Inclusivity Summit, sharing how the Alliance for Global Inclusion is set to make progress real for women, the industry, and the world.
  • Launched its second Global Inclusion Index survey to business leaders from across industries. The results will be featured in the Global Inclusion Index in the spring of 2022 and will highlight insights on current diversity and inclusion practices and areas for improvement across all industries.
  • The Alliance also reached alignment among commitment partners on recommended guidance and suggested actions for possible company adoption to accelerate diversity on its boards. This directly aligns with one of four Alliance goals, which is to develop representation guidance for board of director roles and senior executive roles (direct reports to CEOs) that reflect the customers and communities served. Alliance commitment partners are on track and expected to commit to the adoption of guidance by the end of 2022.

By the end of 2021, only eight months since its launch, the Alliance had doubled the number of commitment partners and welcomed CEOs and CDIOs of Applied Materials, Equinix, Lam Research, Micron, and TEL US.