RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Tech giant Cisco on Wednesday unveiled its plan to increase diversity across the company and to become more involved in efforts to deal with social justice, spelling out in detail 12 actions it planned to take.

In a post headlined “Social Justice Beliefs and Actions,” Cisco pledged:

  • By 2023, achieve a 25% increase in representation of all employees who self-identify as AA/Black from entry-level through manager level and a 75% increase in representation of employees who self-identify as AA/Black from Director through VP+ level.
  • We will provide employees with up to one business day of paid time off to vote in major country elections across the world, where applicable.
  • We will launch a $50M venture investment fund (the “Aspire Fund”) to make investments in Venture Funds and Startups with diverse founders and leadership teams. Aspire Fund will be managed by the same team in Cisco Investments.
  • Cisco will require preferred suppliers in 2021 to report annually on the full spectrum diversity of their US workforce provided to Cisco, where permissible, and we will recognize and reward those that excel in increasing diversity.

The commitment came after CEO Chuck Robbins – a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill – declared the company’s new purpose in June.

In a blog post and in remarks delivered via an international Cisco event, Robbins laid out the new agenda as he reacted to the recent deaths of black Americans at the hands of police, including North Carolina native George Floyd.

“We know our responsibilities don’t end with technology. It’s now about making the world we envision possible. Over the past six months, we came to the conclusion that our new purpose is to Power an Inclusive Future for All,” Robbins wrote.

Cisco later fired “a handful” of workers for racially divisive comments posted online during an online diversity forum, according to a Bloomberg report.

The workers posted comments through message channels over a series of “all-hands” virtual meetings held in June. The first videoconference included Robbins speaking with Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, who is Black, and Bryan Stevenson, a Black lawyer and author who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, in front of 30,000 globally.

‘Inspiration and action’

“We’re hoping these actions serve as a combination of inspiration and action,” Fran Katsoudas, executive vice president and chief people officer of Cisco, told Dow Jones in an interview.

MarketWatch noted that Katsoudas also pointed out: “What we’ve seen, if we don’t take specific action for the Black community, is that we’re not going to see fairness for all.”

A 2019 report about diversity within the company found a lack in minority representation:

  • 3.8% of the company’s overall U.S. workforce was Black
  • at the leadership/manager and VP levels, at 2.2% at leadership/manager level
  • 1.8% at vice president level
  • There are no Black people at the executive level or on the board

Cisco employs several thousand people at its campus in RTP, one of the company’s largest.

Read the full post about the steps thre company is taking at this site.

CEO: Cisco’s purpose now is to ‘Power an Inclusive Future for All’

Cisco fires ‘handful’ of employees for racial comments: Bloomberg