BLACK ENTERPRISE Announces The 40 Best Companies For Diversity

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Kerline K. Jules in Business // 0 Comments

Special Report Reveals Organizations Successfully Embracing Corporate Inclusion Across Four Key Areas: Board of Directors, Employee Base, Senior Management and Supplier Diversity

NEW YORK, Jan. 13, 2015 — BLACK ENTERPRISE has released its listing of the 40 Best Companies for Diversity as featured in the publication’s December 2014/January 2015 issue. The companies singled out for distinction demonstrated a significant commitment to diversity in four key areas: board of directors, employee base, senior management and supplier diversity.

In 2005, BLACK ENTERPRISE began publishing its list of the “Best Companies for Diversity,” identifying those corporations that proved to be the best of the best in the developing a culture and executing policies that promoted of inclusion for African Americans within their workforce, senior management ranks, corporate boards and supplier pools. This year the editors placed special emphasis on the impact of millennials on future corporate diversity initiatives and share this generation’s views with its readers.

In compiling this year’s list, the BLACK ENTERPRISE research team found hundreds of companies that refused to take the survey. Some companies did not participate, stating that did not have adequate time to provide diversity figures. Others admitted that their organizations’ numbers simply did not measure up.

Of the 40 best, AT&T, Con Edison, Comcast, FedEx and MGM International demonstrated significant strengths in three of the four areas surveyed.

The full list of the 2014 Black Enterprise 40 Best Companies for Diversity is as follows:

Arkansas	Minnesota
Entergy Corp., Little Rock	General Mills Inc., Minneapolis
Walmart Stores, Inc., Bentonville
	North Carolina
California	Bank of America Corp., Charlotte
Pacific Gas and Electric Co., San Francisco	TIAA-CREF, Charlotte
Sempra Energy, Los Angeles	Wells Fargo & Co., Charlotte

Florida	New Jersey
Darden Restaurants Inc., Orlando	Merck & Co Inc., Kenilworth
	Prudential Financial Inc., Newark
Georgia	Verizon Communications Inc., Basking Ridge
Aflac Inc., Columbus
The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta	Nevada
Southern Co., Atlanta	MGM Resorts International, Las Vegas

Illinois	New York
Allstate Insurance Co., Northbrook	American Express Co., New York
Exelon Corp., Chicago	Consolidated Edison Inc., New York
McDonald’s Corp., Oak Brook	JPMorgan Chase & Co, New York
Northern Trust Corp., Chicago	Morgan Stanley, New York
PepsiCo Inc., Chicago	Toyota Motor North America, Inc., New York
State Farm Insurance Co., Bloomington	Xerox Corp., Rochester

Kansas	Ohio
Sprint Corp., Overland Park	Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., Columbus

Massachusetts	Pennsylvania
State Street Corp. North Quincy	Aramark, Philadelphia
	Comcast Corp., Philadelphia
Maryland
Marriott International, Inc., Bethesda	Tennessee
	FedEx Corp., Collierville
Michigan
Comerica Inc., Detroit	Texas
Ford Motor Co., Dearborn	AT&T Inc., Dallas
General Motors Co., Detroit
	Virginia
	Freddie Mac, McLean

To select our 2014 companies, BLACK ENTERPRISE sent surveys to the nation’s top 1,000 publicly traded companies as well as to the 100 leading global companies with strong U.S. operations. The questionnaire focused on activities related to the participation of African Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. A heavier weighting was applied to the senior management and supplier diversity areas. The final scores, along with the results of reporting and research conducted by the editorial staff, were used to determine the 40 Best Companies for Diversity.

The 40 Best Companies for Diversity will be honored on Tuesday January 13th, 2015 during a special Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project/Black Enterprise luncheon.

The complete report, including methodology and selection criteria, is available in the December/January issue of black enterprise magazine.