A lot of us want and often try to make a difference; and then again some of us step forward and actually do the heavy lifting.
Today in the United States, minorities comprise 39.9% of our people yet only 10.4% of corporate boards. Last week my remarkable friends at One Better Ventures and Baldwin& joined together with B-Corporation in launching Take Your Seat a new hub to connect qualified Black candidates with companies seeking more diverse boards.
Beyond the clear ethical imperatives, these business leaders are convinced that diversity leads directly to improved board effectiveness and better company results. This seems intuitively correct to me. Why wouldn’t the workplace mirror the marketplace? Indeed, diversity hiring hasn’t just been morally and culturally right forever, today it’s critically required to compete. In this way, it’s not simply decidedly good behavior, it’s clearly a very best business practice. (See Diversity as Competitive Advantage.)
Now that it exists, everyone can see Take Your Seat for what it is - the obvious next step. Their intial goal is 100 placements within the next six months from a continuing pool of 500 candidates ready to take future seats.
I encourage you to join TYS in their mission as they seed their database and approach a more robust launch. Simply sharing this with companies or candidates that might be interested in participating or learning more would be enormously helpful.