HP talks big on equality

January 18, 2021

HP has unveiled bold goals to advance racial equality and social justice.

Lesley Slaton Brown, Chief Diversity Officer, HP Inc. wrote in her blog post: “At HP, we believe respecting and valuing each other’s differences will be the light that guides us out of our darkest days. From the start, our founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard recognized that the more points of view the company can draw on, it can create better products in service of humanity. This is a fundamental belief that has guided our business strategy and culture for more than 80 years.”

Last year, HP committed to double the number of Black and African American executives inside the company by 2025. The company also joined OneTen, which aims to hire and train one million Black workers in the next 10 years.

Slaton Brown said: “Today, we’re proud to accelerate this work through the HP Racial Equality and Social Justice Task Force. The vision of the Task Force is to do our part to end systemic racism and inequality. Our strategy involves identifying and executing on the biggest opportunities we have as a company to drive societal change, first in the U.S., then globally.”

Laying out the short- and long-term commitments, Slaton Brown continued: “Collaboration and accountability will be key to helping us reach our bold commitments. We historically report our diversity metrics in our annual Sustainable Impact Report, and we’ll build a more comprehensive accountability system for the new goals. It involves updating the Task Force site regularly with our progress and reporting our metrics to our board of directors and an internal Global Diversity Advisory Board.

“As a company led by our values, we look forward to using our platform, our technology and our resources as a force for positive, lasting change.”