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How McDonald’s and Walmart are following the demographic shift on YouTube

Have you ever really wanted a brand of jeans, but no matter how many styles you tried on, they just didn’t fit? They were always too small at the hips or a little too short. After many try-ons, you accept that this brand is not for you. You never buy your first pair, let alone many pairs. And the brand lost a potential loyalist.

It’s not enough to show a Black or brown face in an ad and consider it ground breaking or progressive.

One way to achieve customer loyalty is to make sure people feel included in what your brand is doing or selling, and to signal clearly that your products are made for them. In a recent study, nearly 80% of multicultural consumers say they seek out content that makes them feel connected with the people they identify with. 1

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Google/Sparketing, U.S., YouTube Multicultural Marketing study, n=1,560 (n=500 gen. pop., n=306 Black, n=310 Latinx, n=301 Asian, n=318 LGBTQ+), U.S. people 18–54 who use YouTube a few times a month or more, Jan. 2021.

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“It’s not enough to show a Black or brown face in an ad and consider it ground breaking or progressive. Customers want to see content that celebrates and normalizes positive portrayals of diversity,” says D.J. Vaughn, Walmart associate director of multicultural media and content.

In the U.S., where people from underrepresented communities make up 43% of the population, multiculturalism is obviously mainstream. 2 Are you making sure that your jeans fit the diversity of experience represented in that category?

Walmart and McDonald’s are two brands that have led the way on inclusive messaging across cultural groups. Let’s examine their strategies.

Staying relevant during key cultural moments

Walmart has leaned into topics that were once ignored, because they matter to underrepresented communities.

A recent study found that 1 of 3 things multicultural consumers want to see is authentic representation. 3 To that end, Walmart has used YouTube to break the mold by supporting content that Black audiences relate to.

You have to be intentional about your partnerships; it’s not just about who’s hot at the moment.

In 2019, it partnered with YouTube Black FanFest as presenting sponsor to build brand affinity with Black millennial consumers through a cultural moment: the homecoming festivities for Morehouse and Spelman , two prestigious historically Black colleges.

The brand was present throughout the experience with custom on-site activations, multiple digital integrations, and the first ever co-branded masthead on YouTube. The headlining show was live streamed with snackable clips that followed. To date, those clips have garnered over 150,000 views and the live stream resulted in 2.26 million views — a 3,275% increase from the year prior.

The momentum from that activation deepened through Walmart’s Storytime Series on YouTube . Created for adolescents, Walmart Storytime features books by Black authors and illustrators with narration from folks like LeBron James and Jimmie Allen, the first Black musician to be named the Academy of Country Music Awards’ New Male Artist of the Year.

Despite working with big names, Walmart is equally committed to elevating lesser-known but deserving talent. “You have to be intentional about your partnerships; it’s not just about who’s hot at the moment,” according to Vaughn. Brands have the power to create audiences for new voices, whether those voices are behind the scenes or in the limelight, a huge opportunity for culturally engaged marketers.

When asked what brands should consider when curating content on spaces like YouTube, Vaughn emphasizes that you can’t just show up based on the news cycle. Brands with a consistent presence convey authenticity. And, he says, every activation needn’t be a product push. It’s OK, even beneficial, to focus a campaign on the community without intention to sell.

Walmart will do just that through its next YouTube campaign, Black & Unlimited , which launched early March and saw phenomenal results in just two weeks. The series celebrates Black individuality by spotlighting Black creators who are blazing trails and defining what Black identity means to them. The first episode achieved audience reach over 1,341% above benchmarks, in addition to 4,000 likes and 457 overwhelmingly positive comments. With this work, Walmart aims to embrace the many intersections of Black identity.

Pivoting strategy to account for different audiences

McDonald’s has a long history of programs and initiatives geared toward customers from culturally diverse communities. But in recent years, the fast food giant has shifted its paid strategy to ensure its campaigns not only resonate with multicultural audiences, but also show up on the channels that are most relevant and authentic to them.

“If we want to engage our diverse fans in a meaningful and memorable way, we have to meet them where they are,” says Sheila Hamilton, McDonald’s director of media.

Historically, McDonald’s was highly sensitive to brand adjacency, implementing restrictive brand suitability settings across all YouTube campaigns. With a newfound focus on ensuring that its key messaging reflected the diversity of its consumer base, that had to change. In 2020, McDonald’s launched its “Famous Orders” campaign , partnering with artists like Travis Scott and Saweetie, to connect with consumers through hip-hop culture and music.

McDonald’s spotted a disconnect in reaching consumers from culturally diverse communities and refined its brand safety measures to be more inclusive.

The campaign was a hit, but despite hip-hop being the fastest growing of the top three music genres (including pop and rock) in the U.S., that success didn’t initially translate on YouTube. 4 This was a puzzle. After all, the brand’s digital initiatives were all about reaching consumers where they spend most of their time, and McDonald’s research showed that YouTube captures a lot of that time on a significant scale.

“We looked at brand safety measures and recognized that certain [measures] meant we weren’t connecting with some of our audiences in places that were relevant and authentic for them,” according to Hamilton.

As it turned out, McDonald’s had previously excluded rap content from its targeting parameters due to language and thematic concerns, which meant “Famous Orders” advertisements had no presence on the channels of collaborating music artists. McDonald’s quickly spotted the disconnect in reaching multicultural consumers and refined its brand safety measures to be more inclusive.

“There are just certain things that are inherent to our brand. Music is a key component and has been for years,” says Hamilton. “We’re really trying to do it in an authentic way.”

To that end, McDonald’s collaborated with YouTube’s sales team to develop a new strategy for inclusive media buying practices. By moving from restrictive buying practices to limited mode, the brand was able to maintain brand suitability while also amplifying its hip-hop strategy across YouTube. As a result, hip-hop music exclusions were reduced by 32% in a six-month period.

As we can see with Walmart and McDonald’s, advertisers have many options to connect with multicultural audiences — staying relevant during key moments, leveraging tools to inform targeting decisions, and, most of all, keeping these audiences top of mind when creating video content. With multicultural viewers leading the streaming demographic shift, McDonald’s and Walmart have made YouTube the linchpin in their marketing plans and powerfully demonstrated how to engage beyond the norm.

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1, 2, 3 Google/Sparketing, U.S., YouTube Multicultural Marketing study, n=1,560 (n=500 gen. pop., n=306 Black, n=310 Latinx, n=301 Asian, n=318 LGBTQ+), U.S. people 18–54 who use YouTube a few times a month or more, Jan. 2021.

4 YouTube Internal Data, U.S., Q4 2020.

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Social Network Analysis of YouTube: A Case Study on Content Diversity and Genre Recommendation

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• Shubham Garg 18 ,
• Saurabh 18 &
• Manvi Breja 18  

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1227))

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Social Network Analysis has a great potential in analyzing social networks and understand how users in communities interact with each other. It can be used to draw meaningful insights from networks, as users with similar patterns can be identified and mapped together, thereby helping provide relevant content to new users. This would not only help platforms enhance user experience but also benefit users who are new to the platform. The aim of this paper is to analyze the network of users who upload videos on YouTube. We apply social network analysis on YouTube data to analyze the diversity of video genres uploaded by a user and also find the most popular uploader in each category. A new approach is also proposed using the Apriori algorithm to recommend a category that a new user might be interested in uploading, based on what other users with similar interest are uploading.

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Garg, S., Saurabh, Breja, M. (2021). Social Network Analysis of YouTube: A Case Study on Content Diversity and Genre Recommendation. In: Singh, V., Asari, V., Kumar, S., Patel, R. (eds) Computational Methods and Data Engineering. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1227. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6876-3_3

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5 Must-Watch YouTube Videos on Diversity & Inclusion

If you’re more of an auditory or visual learner, videos might be your preferred way to ingest information. However, even if videos aren’t your go-to learning tool, they can be great resources for learning something new and important on-the-go or for playing in the background when you’re working or doing household chores. 

YouTube is a great way to access content about diversity, inclusion, and equality. One of the best advantages of using YouTube as a resource for learning about  diversity and inclusion  is the diversity of videos available on the platform. From videos made by  big companies  on what D&I means for them, recordings of TED talks and conferences to more personal storytime videos detailing the experiences of different individuals all around the globe,   YouTube  has a whole host of accessible D&I content. 

We’ve compiled our top 5 must-watch YouTube videos specifically useful for understanding more about the topic in the workplace: 

1. How to get serious about diversity and inclusion in the workplace – A TED talk by Janet Stovall

With 17.6 million subscribers, TED talks are a popular choice on YouTube. This talk by inclusion advocate Janet Stovall is rich with advice on how to create an inclusive workplace whereby employees feel safe to be their authentic selves.

In this talk, Toni Carter shares her experience on how diversity works best when it’s accompanied by inclusion. Toni address important questions such as why have we made such little progress over the years? And why is it so difficult to get the majority group on the same journey to inclusion? The video is a must-watch if you’re looking to understand more about the relationship between diversity and inclusion. 

3. Humanize diversity and inclusion – Damien Hooper-Campbell

Damien Hooper-Campbell, Chief Diversity Officer at eBay delivers an inspiring and highly engaging talk on humanising diversity and inclusion. Damien engages with the audience and invites conversation on what D&I means to them and the value of communication. He also explores, in-depth, the relationship between diversity and inclusion at a holistic level.

4. Inclusion Starts with I – Accenture 

Inclusion Starts with I is a discussion about the importance of an inclusive working environment. The short video has had a huge impact on how people think about inclusion and has been viewed over 1.1 million times. The video highlights how bias can present itself in unexpected ways and how together people behold the power to make a positive change.

5. Diversity in Tech: Building Inclusivity – Maxine Williams 

Maxine Williams is Global Director of Diversity at Facebook and has been instrumental in rolling out industry-changing changes surrounding diversity in tech. In this recording of her keynote speech at the SXSW Convergence 2016, Maxine advises on how to change the status quo, examples of influential people to learn from, and how to keep up the momentum in the drive for more diversity and inclusion in tech. 

To read out about some excellent podcasts for diversity and inclusion, click here.  

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Teaching DEI Through Case Studies

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In the summer of 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement took center stage across the United States. At the height of a devastating pandemic and in the wake of several high-profile murders of Black Americans by law enforcement and others, a diverse range of citizens took to the streets to protest systemic racism and the inhumane treatment of African Americans.

Through the lens of bystander Darnella Frazier’s smartphone camera, the world watched in horror as George Floyd died at the hands of a white police officer on a street in Minneapolis. On May 25, 2020, officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as Floyd repeatedly said that he could not breathe. His death, along with those of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery a few months earlier, sparked international protests and drew intense scrutiny about how African Americans are treated by the police, the criminal justice system, and their fellow citizens.

The protests of 2020 prompted many companies, organizations, and educational systems to express their public support of the BLM movement and commit to the goal of achieving racial equity and social justice. While for many companies this was likely a fleeting PR move, others announced that they were taking a hard look at their own systemic issues. Business leaders at companies in many industries began the challenging but necessary work of exposing and addressing the deep biases that have been hardwired into their organizations. The Quaker Oats Company, for example, announced its discontinuation of the 130-year-old Aunt Jemima breakfast foods brand, which had been inspired by a minstrel show song and had long perpetuated a Black stereotype.

Many businesses responded by not only committing to increasing diversity within their workforces, but also examining their supply chains and external partners. Target Corporation, headquartered in Minneapolis, pledged to “…work with diverse suppliers that are at least 51 percent owned, controlled, and operated by women; Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; LGBTQ+; veterans or persons with disabilities.” In 2020, U.S. Bank committed to “doubling its Black-owned suppliers within the next 12 months.”

Further, because of the BLM movement, many major companies are recruiting from historically black colleges and universities more than ever before. Morgan State University in Baltimore reports that its online job portal saw a “263 percent increase in employer logins between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, with major companies like Apple, Bank of America, and Estée Lauder reaching out for the first time ever.”

The Growing Diversity of the Student Body

Against this backdrop of the fight for racial equity and social justice, the U.S. is undergoing a significant change in demographics. In a recent article , The Washington Post shared the following conclusions from newly released 2020 census data:

“The country … passed two more milestones on its way to becoming a majority-minority society in the coming decades: For the first time, the portion of White people dipped below 60 percent, slipping from 63.7 percent in 2010 to 57.8 percent in 2020. And the under-18 population is now majority people of color, at 52.7 percent.”

These statistics apply to our students as well as our future leaders and labor force. Businesses and those in the business of educating students for a future of fulfilling work must respond in kind to a changing college campus. Some schools already are, as shown by these recent examples:

• The University of California system announced that for the incoming 2021 class, “underrepresented students will comprise 43 percent of the new admits, with Latinx students making up 37 percent and the number of Black students being admitted increasing by 15.6 percent.”
• In July, the Governing Board of California Community Colleges (CCC) announced its approval of two new requirements, including one adding ethnic studies as a graduation requirement for students seeking associate’s degrees and another mandating that CCC schools incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and anti-racism into their employment procedures.
• Purdue University has created a new Equity Task Force and has committed more than 75 million USD over five years to support Black students. Purdue states that the “goals of the task force are split into three categories that will measure success in making Purdue a better place for Black students, faculty, and staff: Representation, Experience, and Success.”

DEI in the Curriculum

Universities and college campuses have long been at the forefront of a range of social justice movements, codifying these movements into academic programs such as Black studies, women’s studies, disability studies, queer studies, and more. But there remains much work to be done, including in the integration of DEI content into our curricula. As educators, publishers, and academics who create scholarly content, we are all responsible for taking a close look at how we approach teaching the lessons of diversity. We must build and use curricular tools that reflect the world our students will enter and their experiences within it.

We need more case studies in our classrooms that are written by authors from a range of backgrounds and perspectives—not just by those who represent predominately white, privileged, Western viewpoints.

The traditional case study is one such tool we can use to support DEI and the changing face of business. That said, the case study, long a stalwart in business and management education, is ripe for reinvention where DEI is concerned. It’s true that case studies can expose students to the challenges of a wide variety of organizations, from global publicly traded entities to local startups to social enterprises. But it’s just as essential that cases expose students to a range of perspectives and reflect the myriad backgrounds—cultural and economical—of those who work within the featured organizations.

Moreover, the importance of DEI in case studies extends beyond their subject matter to their authorship. We need more case studies in our classrooms that are written by authors from a range of backgrounds and perspectives—not just by those who represent predominately white, privileged, Western viewpoints.

Fortunately, case studies can be developed far more quickly than textbooks or even mass market book titles. Their short format means that professors can use them not only to keep content fresh and current for students, but also to better capture the shifting nature of businesses and the people who help them thrive. Cases also can show real-time examples of companies undergoing successful evolutions in their DEI initiatives, as well as companies that still have a long way to go.

By looking at business through a DEI lens, students can better see the reality of our economic landscape. They can truly connect to, and see themselves in, today’s business environment.

Building a Modern Case Collection

Our SAGE Business Cases collection is a testament to SAGE’s dedication to prioritizing cases that represent a broad and inclusive range of backgrounds and perspectives from around the world. SAGE is committed to developing cases around emerging and underserved topics that accurately reflect the diversity and shifting priorities of the global business landscape, as well as the experiences of those who work within it.

For example, in 2021 we launched a new case series called Immigrant Entrepreneurs . This groundbreaking series is edited by Bala Mulloth, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Virginia and himself an immigrant entrepreneur. It features the stories of founders who started businesses outside their countries of origin.

While there has been a spike of interest in case studies that feature protagonists of a variety of backgrounds, we have also seen a rise of nativist politics across countries and cultures. Part of our vision for this series is to combat the damaging and false political narrative that immigrants harm economies. We want to defuse that narrative with positive and inspiring examples of the value immigrants add to communities around the world.

Our SAGE Business Cases platform enables us to quickly publish brief, news-driven cases. Faculty and students can quickly employ the offerings in our Express Case series for classroom or online discussion. Examples include:

• How Will BLM Change Corporate Activism?
• Analyzing Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine PR Strategy

We also offer longer-form cases in our SAGE Originals collection, such as the following:

• Woke-Washing: The Promise and Risk of Linking Branding With Politics
• Policing the Police: Privatization as a Means of Oversight
• Organizational Responses to Athlete Activism Post-Kaepernick: An Exercise in Decision-Making
• Nike and the Balancing Act Between Social Justice and Selling Products

Tools That Reflect the Reality of Business

For its part, AACSB has shown its deep commitment to diversity and inclusion in its 2020 business accreditation standards , in which it embeds ideals related to diversity and inclusion in six out of nine standards, compared to six out of 15 in the 2013 standards. To align with this commitment, our curricular tools must reflect the varied reality of those engaged in the global business environment, no matter their locations, roles, organization types, gender, race, age, religion, sexuality, or disability status.

As educators, publishers, and business school administrators, we have a responsibility to provide all students with not only access and opportunity, but also exposure to a wide range of perspectives. By exposing them to the true, diverse nature of business, we can prepare them for the world today and enable them to change it for the better.

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Building Inclusion from the Inside-Out: A Brief Case Study

The philanthropic sector believes diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to any social mission, but how can organizations ensure that their own people and processes reflect those values?

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By Sampriti Ganguli & Graham Murphy Jul. 27, 2016

The philanthropic sector is in agreement that diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to any social mission, but what does that look like in practice—especially within our own hallways and cubicles? While there’s consensus that our field has work to do in better representing and serving our diverse population, putting intentions into practice can be complicated and difficult.

Earlier this year, the D5 Coalition , a recently completed five-year initiative to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy, released its annual State of the Work report outlining the movement’s progress and challenges. While D5’s creation five years ago, and the growing number of social-sector institutions who partnered with it over the years, are testament to the importance philanthropy places on diversity, equity, and inclusion, its latest report found that we still have a way to go. For example, people of color are still underrepresented at foundation leadership levels—and the lack of reliable data about the number of women, people of color, LGBT people, and people with disabilities in decision-making positions within foundations presents an ongoing challenge. As D5 Director Kelly Brown stated in the report, “The data itself may not be telling the whole story because many foundations have yet to share information about personnel and grant making.”

Given this, D5 decided to focus its final report on stories of people in philanthropic organizations taking action to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. Brown continued, “These stories can inform strategy, but more importantly they instill hope, inspire courage, and buttress our shared commitment to advance the common good.”

In the spirit of the report, we are sharing our story—stumbles and all—in the hopes that others can learn from our experience as they work toward our shared goals.

Are you enjoying this article? Read more like this, plus SSIR's full archive of content, when you subscribe .

Arabella Advisors, which since 2005 has advised foundations and other donors on philanthropic strategy, began a concerted effort five years ago to increase the diversity of our workforce. We made many mistakes in our earliest days. It took time to understand what works and what doesn’t, and recalibrate, and we have come to realize that fully embodying these values is hard, in the same way that any kind of social change is hard.

Good Intentions Aren’t Enough

Leading up to this effort, we were growing rapidly, and we increasingly heard—particularly from junior and mid-level staff—that that our workplace felt disconnected from the people and places we served. At the same time, our clients—current and prospective—were more frequently highlighting how mission-critical diversity, equity, and inclusion is to the social sector. In 2011, we made a commitment to increase the diversity of our workforce.

At first, our efforts were scattershot and disorganized. We drafted a statement of our commitment , but though the sentiment was genuine, we had no coherent strategy to achieve it. We solicited ideas from staff about how to reach more diverse networks and set up a few ad-hoc staff diversity committees comprised of people who believed deeply in the mission. But while they proposed worthy goals, they made limited progress. These ideas and committees weren’t integrated into the organization’s broader strategic plan, and it was difficult to persuade management to accept accountability for goals that that it did not fully understand.

A couple of years into our efforts, we were seeing some positives—for example, broader recruiting networks and relationships with professional associations whose members brought new experiences to our firm—but staff sentiment remained ambivalent. We also heard clients express a desire for more diversity on our project teams. This led the firm’s leadership to pressure the recruitment team to seek more “diversity candidates,” but without a clear strategy for how to do that—or, most crucially, a common understanding of what we meant by diversity—the perspectives and insights we were bringing to the table felt static.

Listening and Learning

Two years into our efforts, we took a step back, acknowledging that we had misjudged the complexity of what it meant to be a diverse firm. Because of a desire to see and demonstrate progress, we had jumped into a series of actions geared at outputs measurable by statistics, without stopping to understand the problem.

We decided to approach diversity, equity, and inclusion as we would other firm-wide strategic issues: by designating people to lead the charge and be accountable, integrating it into our broader goals and infrastructure, and identifying outsiders to fill the gaps in our expertise. A brand-new HR department took responsibility for the firm’s commitment to diversity and set a simple goal for the first year: to develop a long-term vision and strategy for what a diverse, equitable, and inclusive Arabella should look like.

The team began with two important steps focused on learning. First, it reached out to diversity experts and external groups with diversity, equity, and inclusion success stories, including D5, academia, diversity consultants, and competitors. These groups helped us understand that diversity goes beyond demographics and statistics—that it is woven into every aspect of the workplace, from the obvious (recruiting and hiring) to the less obvious (water cooler chatter, happy hour themes, and who leads presentations at all-staff meetings). They also helped us determine where we needed to train staff on issues like unconscious bias and navigating challenging conversations.

Second, the team asked staff members what they were experiencing when it came to the diversity of our workforce and how our workplace supported it. We disseminated an all-staff survey, and interviewed individuals to learn about their experiences inside and outside Arabella. To our surprise, the internal data turned out to be the most enlightening. We hadn’t previously tracked demographic data in a systematic way, and our survey highlighted the extent to which racial and ethnic minorities were underrepresented at the firm—something we could set clear goals to address. We also learned that there was a perception that the firm promoted only dominant and extroverted personalities, and that people with different personalities weren’t heard.

Diversity at an organizational level is much more complex than demographic representation. Organizations must also create an environment in which different voices are heard, different skills and backgrounds are valued and promoted, and everyone feels they can be their authentic selves without professional repercussions. By seeking outside perspective and creating a platform that allowed employees to share their feelings, we discovered that every aspect of our systems, processes, and culture feeds into how diverse, equitable, and inclusive we are.

Initial Progress and Moving Forward

Understanding the problem better means we’ve become better at addressing it. With full backing from our senior leadership and our new CEO, we implemented a number of strategies. In 2015, we set a goal of increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the firm so that it better reflected the general population. A revamped recruiting team identified and cultivated partnerships with organizations that would connect us with candidates from a broader set of backgrounds. We forged a partnership with the DC chapter of the National Black MBA Association , for example, and co-hosted meetings and events for its members. We also affirmed our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our branding, particularly on our recruiting materials, and have heard from several candidates that this was a factor in their decision to apply to Arabella.

Simultaneously, we made a series of internal changes that went hand-in-hand with more expansive recruiting and hiring. We trained hiring managers to understand unconscious bias and how it can generate homogenous candidate pools. Prior to this work, one of our hiring criteria was “cultural fit”—a vague rationale that we now interrogated, realizing it was an umbrella under which people could lump biases. Our recruiters no longer allowed hiring teams to turn down a candidate because they were “not a cultural fit.” We also had external experts do intensive, full-day trainings with every member of our staff about what constituted an equitable and inclusive environment, including sessions on issues such as microaggressions and power in the workplace. We identified a cohort of staff from across the firm to serve as inclusion leaders, tasked with working on an ongoing basis with leadership, HR, and their peers on changing internal culture, processes, and models to better integrate these values.

Through these measures, we have begun to see progress on several fronts. For example, in 2015, we increased the racial and ethnic diversity of the firm by 32 percent, broadening and deepening the perspectives we bring to our work with clients and to our daily interactions with each other. And we formed a cohort of inclusion leaders—a cross-section of staff spanning the firm’s teams and regional offices—tasked with drawing on their experiences to drive the firm’s work on diversity and inclusion. In addition to helping us identify a number of other ways in which staff have felt disconnected, the inclusion leaders have led the development of a multi-pronged strategy to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion into the firm’s culture, recruiting and hiring, and client relationships. While we address the issues this cohort raises at the leadership level, staff members now drive trainings and events, as well as the broad direction of our efforts on this front.

Through these efforts, we have become better at incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion values into our work with clients. One of our project teams, for example, was able to help a major client uncover implicit bias and blind spots in their giving strategy; this resulted in a new set of criteria for their grant making that is enabling them to reach more vulnerable populations. Living these values by being better partners to our clients is deeply satisfying.

We all have a role to play in making our field more diverse, equitable, and inclusive—both in how we treat the people who work there and in how we think about the work we do. It is a tough journey that takes time, facing hard truths, and learning from mistakes, but the change we want to see in the world needs to start in our own hallways. 

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Berkeley Haas Case Series

The Berkeley Haas Case Series is a collection of business case studies created by UC Berkeley faculty

Responsible A.I.: Tackling Tech’s Largest Corporate Governance Challenges

In 2017, Google announced that it would be an "AI first" company and prioritized the development of an ethical charter to guide the company when it came to AI.

Zendesk: Building Female Leaders Through Mentorship

A new mentorship program launched with early success at Zendesk in the United States and is now expanding to all employees across 15 countries. Women at Zendesk supports junior-level women in achieving their personal and professional goals by connecting them with role models.

Promoting a Culture of Equity in the #MeToo Era

The #MeToo movement brought global awareness to the magnitude of gender-related inequalities in the workplace, including unequal pay and the lack of women in the C-suite and boardroom. Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm, has a history of success in developing equity fluent leaders.

Eliminating the Gender Pay Gap: Gap Inc. Leads the Way

Since Gap Inc. made history in 2014 by becoming the first Fortune 500 company to announce that it pays female and male employees equally for equal work, attention towards equal pay by individual employees, companies, and governments has continued to grow.

CASE COMPENDIUM

EGAL is dedicated to educating Equity Fluent Leaders™ to ignite and accelerate change. As part of this mission, EGAL developed a case compendium that includes: (a) case studies with diverse protagonists, and (b) case studies that build “equity fluency” by focusing on DEI-related issues and opportunities. The goal of the compendium is to support professors at Haas, and business schools globally, to identify cases they can use in their own classrooms, and ultimately contribute to advancing DEI in education and business. Learn more

The State of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Business School Case Studies

In addition to developing the compendium, EGAL conducted an analysis of the case studies collected. The results are documented in an executive summary and full report .

The Berkeley-Haas Case Series is a collection of business case studies written by Haas faculty. Our culture and vision at the Haas School of Business naturally offer distinctive qualities to the Series, filling a gap in existing case offerings by drawing upon lessons from UC Berkeley's rich history and prime location in the San Francisco Bay Area. We seek to publish cases that challenge conventional assumptions about business, science, culture, and politics.

Siemens Healthineers: A Digital Journey

Maersk: Driving Culture Change at a Century-Old Company to Achieve Measurable Results

Flourish Fi: Empowering Positive Money Habits

Just Climate: A New Investment Model?

Roche Pakistan

A new collection of business case studies from Berkeley Haas

The aim of the Berkeley Haas Case Series is to incite business innovation by clarifying disruptive trends and questioning the status quo.

• Green Economy
• Agribusiness
• Banking & Finance
• Fisheries and Aquaculture
• Dr. Maxwell Ampong
• Alberta Quarcoopome
• Nana Yaa Ofori-Atta
• Ghana Economic Forum
• African Energy Conference
• The Money Summit
• Youth Economic Forum

Cultural diversity and study of law – the case of UG’s School of Law

Mahatma Gandhi, the eminent Indian independence activist and leader, once said “No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.” This statement underscores the imperative for cultures to embrace diversity and promote unity.

In other words, a culture cannot thrive or be sustainable if it isolates itself from other cultures and refuses to interact, share, or integrate with them. Culture cuts across various segments of society. There is education culture, work culture, food culture, health culture, and many more.

Purposefully creating, nurturing, and sustaining an atmosphere of cultural diversity not only ensures the survival of a culture but also nourishes it and facilitates the sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills.

The eventual outcome is enhanced creativity and innovation when it comes to solving problems. This is particularly crucial for educational cultures in today’s technologically-connected society, as they unquestionably shape minds and transform lives.

In consonance with the preceding statement, Senator James William Fulbright of the United States stated that “Educational exchange turns nations into people and makes significant contributions, unlike any other form of communication, to humanizing international relations”. He believed in diversity and global knowledge; therefore, he initiated the international exchange programme for scholars called the Fulbright Scholarship.

Back home, listening to and observing the educational landscape from afar, with a particular focus on law schools, one cannot help but admire the University of Ghana School of Law (UGSoL). Over the years, it has tenaciously worked to create a culture of innovation, inclusivity, and diversity, dumping mediocrity in the process.

It has introduced 19 twin Master of Laws (LLM) and Master of Arts (MA) programmes tailored to meet Ghana’s needs in the twenty-first century, with a global appeal to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate modern-day work-related legal and regulatory challenges. Most importantly, it ensures that all students receive fair treatment and equal opportunities, including the international exposure component of UGSoL’s legal education.

It was both intriguing and refreshing when the Dean of UGSoL, Prof. Raymond A. Atuguba, announced on Joy FM’s morning show about three weeks ago that graduate students, including the first cohort, who had unfortunately missed out on the international component of their legal education, had been given that opportunity and were receiving international legal training in selected law schools in Europe and America.

The media interview revealed that the first cohort had a special dispensation. Indeed, checks indicate that between March and April, a team completed a study tour of the Institute of Austrian and International Tax Law in Vienna, Austria; Columbia Law School in New York, USA and the University of Passau Faculty of Law in Germany. The team included students from the first cohort.

Another team completed a study tour of the Columbia Law School in New York, USA; the University of Pennsylvania Centre for Global Health in Philadelphia, USA and the Global Justice-International Labour Rights Forum in Washington DC, USA in early June. Other students will complete their study tour of the Harvard Law School in Massachusetts, USA; the Columbia Law School in New York, USA and the University of Stirling Law School in Scotland, United Kingdom, at the end of June.

Meanwhile, other students are lacing their boots for a study tour in July and August of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) School of Law in London, United Kingdom; the University of South Carolina in the USA and the Tulane University Maritime Law Centre in New Orleans, USA.

It was also encouraging to note that the undergraduate students are equally participating in a semester exchange programme at the University of Gdańsk in Poland and the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS) in Austria, sponsored by the Erasmus + Programme. It focuses on enhancing their legal knowledge through lectures and networking sessions. Not only do these undergraduate students consistently demonstrate dedication and stellar performances throughout such exchange programmes, but UGSoL’s international network grows by the day to offer such opportunities to students.

Prof. Atuguba noted that “at the University of Ghana School of Law, we give every student the opportunity to get international experience, including traveling abroad to the best universities in the world to study for a period of time and to come back.”

Verily, St. Augustine could not have put it in a better way when he said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” Similarly, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, emphasised that “whatever education a university or institute of higher education imparts, it must achieve the global level of benchmarking given the vastness and diversity of the global village we live in today.”

These endeavours by the UGSoL to ensure thoroughbred legal minds are commendable. They represent a deliberate effort to sustainably enrich and empower Ghana’s legal fraternity with quality human resources that are versatile in international approaches, interventions and globally acknowledged best practices to ensure a fair and just society for all. They will serve as leading lights in the legal profession well beyond the shores of Ghana.

The University of Ghana School of Law is arguably Ghana’s premier law school, which is much sought-after and has a clear competitive edge. The recent international exposure to the study of law at UGSoL will further entrench the School’s position as a destination of choice for legal education.

As mentioned during the interview on Joy FM’s morning show, UGSoL is constantly innovating to stay ahead of the competition and does not compromise on quality. That is the way to go in order to remain one of Africa’s top five law schools and the best in West Africa. The achievements of UGSoL are obvious, and expectations can only be high.

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“DEI got someone killed”: Right-wing media blame diversity initiatives for Trump rally shooting

Written by Emma Mae Weber , Charis Hoard & Bushra Sultana

Published 07/15/24 4:55 PM EDT

After former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally on Saturday, right-wing media attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s emphasis on hiring more women in the force to suggest that such initiatives “compromised” the caliber of the agency. Conservative media are arguing that “there should not be any women” in the Secret Service, and claiming that “DEI got someone killed.”

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Right-wing media tried to link the trump attack to dei policies and kimberly cheatle’s focus on hiring more women in the secret service.

• On July 13, former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania during his speech at a campaign rally. One rally attendee was killed and two others injured. The 20-year-old suspected shooter was a registered Republican, and he reportedly donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a liberal voter turnout group, in 2021. The FBI is still investigating the shooter's motive. [The Associated Press, 7/15/24 ; The New York Times, 7/14/24 ; NBC, 7/15/24 ]
• The Secret Service and local law enforcement have come under fire for their security preparations for the rally. Some have questioned whether the size of the security perimeter was too small and if the sweep of the facility was thorough enough. There is also a video circulating of civilians spotting the gunman before the shooting took place. [CNN, 7/15/24 ; NBC, 7/15/24 ]
• Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told CBS News in 2023 that her goal was to have 30% female recruits in the agency by 2030. “I'm very conscious as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle said. [CBS News, 5/18/23 ]
• Right-wing media have a history of using  diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to attack their targets, claiming that they “didn’t earn it.” In March, for example, right-wing media targeted Black individuals in high-level positions such as Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. In January, right-wing media blamed diversity, equity, and inclusion for multiple failures in Boeing planes. Around the same time, several conservative personalities celebrated the resignation of former Harvard President Claudine Gay, who was the university’s first Black president, as a victory over “DEI ideology” and “the DEI cancer.” [Media Matters, 4/5/24 , 1/25/24 , 1/5/24 , 1/12/24 ]
• Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy said that the agency’s goal to have 30 percent female force is “a very unbelievable mission goal for something that is so important.” Campos-Duffy added, “If people are afraid to run for office, that is a disservice to the entire citizenry. That is — talk about undermining and threatening democracy.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend , 7/14/24 ]
• The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh wrote, “ There should not be any women in the Secret Service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women.” [Twitter/X, 7/14/24 ]  
• Fox host Emily Compagno asked her guest if the diversity hiring initiative, “with the purpose of fulfilling diversity requirements, compromised the caliber of the Secret Service agents.” Retired Secret Service agent Jeff James responded in part, “One of the problems that I saw when I was at the end of my career and I was doing background investigations on new hires was the things we started to say OK to that weren’t OK when I was hired. … I think more so than whether an applicant is male or female, race, color, religion, that there is a caliber and there is a bar that they should meet in all things.” [Fox News, Outnumbered , 7/15/24 ] 
• Frequent Fox guest Charles Marino said the director of the Secret Service has to “demonstrate that she has not lowered standards within the agency to achieve what she wants to do on the diversity side.” Marino claimed, “This is going to have to fall on her. And that's why one of the areas I said it’s going to be under great scrutiny here is the hiring process and the training process. Have people met the standards across the board both from a physical standpoint and an intellectual and experienced standpoint to achieve the mission?” [Fox News, Fox & Friends , 7/15/24 ]
• Fox News contributor and former FBI agent Nicole Parker attacked Cheatle’s 2023 comments, saying, “The fact that they are more concerned about DEI and hiring a certain percentage of females is absolutely unacceptable.” Parker said, “Since when should you hire someone just because they're a female? I am a female. I should not be hired based on my gender; I should be hired because I am the most qualified. How about instead of focusing on 30% of female agents, why don't you start buying 30 drones? That could've really eliminated the problem here." [Fox News, Special Coverage of the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trum p, 7/14/24 ]
• Newsmax’s Carl Higbie blamed Cheatle, saying she “made a major push for this DEI and soft policing and that’s a problem and it came to fruition.” Higbie asserted, “She's had a huge push on DEI and making sure that everybody has an opportunity. Well, you know what? Donald Trump almost didn't have an opportunity to continue his campaign because of her policies, because she's too worried about how it's going to look in the papers the next day that she's encouraged people to be weak on what they're training, and that's a problem.” [Newsmax, Greg Kelly This Week , 7/14/24 ]
• OAN host Dan Ball said, “Maybe Ms. Cheadle has been too worried about making sure all of the agents use the proper pronouns.” He also claimed, “She didn't have a lot of qualifications, but maybe in this new DEI, CRT, woke world, we will worry more about ideology and making sure someone gets people's pronouns right than doing the job the Secret Service was intended to, which is to take a bullet for the president or to stop someone from shooting one of our presidents or a presidential candidate.” [One America News, Special coverage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump , 7/13/24 ]
• Fox Nation host Dan Bongino criticized the Secret Service, saying the agency “put out, you know, a thousand tweets about all of this DEI stuff.” Bongino added: “Do I know that's related here? I don't. I’m just saying, like — you have one job, and only one job.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend , 7/14/24 ]
• The Daily Wire published a piece that said “Biden DEI push in Secret Service led to unqualified agents.” The piece claimed that months ago “there were indications that the Biden administration’s focus on identity politics had undermined competence at the protective agency.” [The Daily Wire, 7/14/24 ]
• In multiple posts, Christopher Rufo, who has spearheaded the right's attack on critical race theory, attacked the CIA’s DEI program, rhetorically asking, “Is the president safer when he is protected by a strong, nonbinary Latinx womxn?” [Twitter/X, 7/15/24 , 7/15/24 ; Media Matters, 6/23/21 ]
• Discussing the Secret Service, Fox host Brian Kilmeade claimed that “we know that so many different industries have been hurt” by DEI . He also attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, saying: “We know that being politically correct and the DEI got us Kamala Harris as a vice president.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends , 7/15/24 ]
• On X, OutKick host Tomi Lahren wrote , “Maybe the former president should have all former military men and preferably special operators protecting him instead of DEI hires.” [Twitter/X, 7/14/24 ]
• Anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok attacked the female CIA agent on Trump’s detail, writing, “The results of DEI. DEI got someone killed.” [Twitter/X, 7/15/24 ]

Case study: Focusing on equality and diversity

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was rated inadequate and placed into special measures in September 2015.

27% of staff are not from the UK (14% EU staff and 13% from the rest of the world). There is an underpinning thread of equality and diversity in the trust’s work. This includes:

• the senior team working closely with its EU staff following the EU referendum result and holding a workshop with an MP to reassure staff and answer any questions
• the equality and diversity team providing talks, seminars and films
• mandatory training on unconscious bias; this has made a strong impact
• visual cues’ of inclusion and diversity made from the flags of the different home countries of staff are displayed all over the trust and online
• the trust working with groups of vulnerable people and regularly discusses inclusion with staff to highlight discrimination issues

The trust was rated as good in January 2017.

Snippet for driving improvement in NHS hospitals

Driving improvement: case studies from eight NHS trusts

Related key lines of enquiry

Culture of the organisation

LX / Meaningful mentoring in the classroom: a Business School case study

Meaningful mentoring in the classroom: a Business School case study

• student experience
• student transition

As the second most popular course for UAC applicants in 2024 (just behind Medicine), the UTS Bachelor of Business has some of the largest enrolments across the University. The degree, along with associated combined degrees, sees an intake of over 1700 students each year, with a range of students from domestic, international and non-traditional pathways.   

Whilst student transition can be difficult with large cohorts like Business , the UTS Business Mentors Program has developed a peer-based structure that has become part of the core student experience within the Bachelor of Business. Mentors are experienced students and are embedded in first year classrooms in Accounting & Accountability (AAA, coordinated by A/Prof Amanda White ) and People and Organisations (P&O, coordinated by Dr. Tracey Walmsley ), positively impacting all students completing these two first-semester subjects.

This post aims to share key lessons in developing a meaningful role for mentors in the modern university environment.  

Develop clear roles and expectations for mentors

In Autumn 2024, the mentoring program in People & Organisations was refreshed to improve consistency in the role of mentors within the classroom. We considered four key roles played by a mentor (Levinson, 1986, mentioned in Luna & Cullen, 1995 ):

• A teacher – enhancing an individual’s skills and intellectual development;  
• A sponsor – using influence to facilitate an individual’s entry and advancement;  
• A host and guide – welcoming the individual into a new occupational and social world and acquainting the individual with its values, customs, resources, and role players;  
• An exemplar – providing role modelling behaviour.

By leveraging management and team development theory taught to student mentors previously, the program introduced weekly standups with Subject Coordinator Dr. Tracey Walmsley, where the goal of each activity within a tutorial was explained and the role for mentors defined. In addition, a briefing booklet setting engagement expectations was created which helped students new to the mentoring program navigate the subject. A specific MS Teams site for collaboration and sharing of resources was also set up and used. 

We made the recent enhancements to achieve a consistent approach across the subject and provide mentors with resources to help them excel in their roles. It turned out that we not only achieved those objectives, but we noticed an uplift in the value-add provided to students and general classroom activities, and there was clarity in terms of the role of the mentor.  The changes translated into a ‘one team’ approach being adopted across the P&O subject which was a huge bonus for students, mentors, and the teaching team. Dr. Tracey Walmsley (Subject Coordinator, People & Organisations)

Through regular briefings and the expectations document, the role of the sponsor, host, guide and exemplar was emphasised to student mentors, aligning the program with the needs of the subject. The program also integrates with the Student Experience Framework by utilising student mentors as partners to drive belonging and improve wellbeing in the subject.  

Treating mentors as partners with trust and responsibility

In Spring 2023, senior mentors suggested that the answers for the in-class assessment in Accounting & Accountability should be provided as part of the mentoring briefing. This was driven from a desire in part to increase their effectiveness as a guide through giving feedback to students as they completed in-class activities, however a clear delineation was required between the mentor’s role and that of the tutor.  

To reinforce the role of the mentor and to address concern on the risk of answers being shared to students, expectations were clearly set with mentors, focusing on personal responsibility and trust. Documentation for mentors emphasised:

• Mentors were being trusted to hold the answers in confidence;
• Mentors should not feel pressured to know answers by heart, but rather to guide students, especially with the use of tools like excel;
• Advice on ‘course correcting’ students by being curious about their approach or assumptions in attempts to answer questions.

After the tutorial, mentors were asked to send a short email indicating whether having the answers was a help or hindrance to the activity. The change was well received, with mentors responding positively and explaining that they were more able to clearly assist students in skills development. 

I also love the idea of providing tutorial answers to the mentors – it makes it much easier to prompt the student to recheck what formula they have used, etc. Mentor J.K.​ 

Through AAA workshops, mentors are able to play a key role as a host, guide, exemplar and sponsor, and in tutorials can enhance their role as a teacher by helping students build key excel skills as they learn accounting. The duality of these roles help students leverage academic engagement and build student success through a genuine partnership.  

It is a fine line between supporting and teaching, and providing solutions to our tutorial question helps our mentors guide students towards finding that solution – it requires mentors and tutors to work together to identify that line and not step over it.   A/Prof Amanda White (Subject Coordinator, Accounting & Accountability)

The UTS Business Mentors Program is an excellent example of peer mentorship embedded in curriculum, allowing for an equitable and sustainable approach to peer mentoring. The team has recently expanded into a third subject and assisted the Faculty of Health with their pilot program in Spring 2024. Academic and Professional Staff are welcome to contact the team for further information and assistance: [email protected]   

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