PHOTO & VIDEO RELEASE: MAYOR GARCETTI LAUNCHES INITIATIVE TO ADVANCE RACIAL EQUITY IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR
The Mayor and local business leaders form a new task force, issue a pledge and playbook, and commit to steps to expand opportunity for more Black and Latino workers
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LOS ANGELES — Mayor Eric Garcetti today launched his Racial Equity & Newly Empowered Workplaces (RENEW) Task Force, bringing together a broad coalition of private sector leaders around a concrete pledge to advance racial equity in their workforces.
RENEW is focused on building a more just and fair Los Angeles by applying the principles and steps in the Mayor’s Executive Directive No. 27 to the local business community. Every company that signs onto this endeavor will receive a playbook outlining how to meet their commitments, accelerate their work around racial equity, improve the diversity and inclusivity of their hiring and employment processes, and open more doors to Black and Latino workers.
“Racial equity is more than a lofty aspiration for our city — it must be a core value built into the very foundation of how our government leads, how our businesses hire, how our economy grows, and how our communities thrive,” said Mayor Garcetti. “No single sector, public or private, can meet the challenge of rooting out structural racism alone, and RENEW will rally us around tangible actions to cultivate employees, clients, and networks that reflect the extraordinary diversity of Los Angeles.”
Los Angeles is one of the most diverse cities in the world, yet far more needs to be done to translate that diversity into the workforces, executive suites, and boards of leading companies and startups. Right now, locally and nationwide:
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More than 60% of Black and Latino households in the U.S. have no assets in retirement accounts.
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Median earnings for Black and Latino workers with a bachelor’s degree are about 20% lower than their White counterparts.
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The number of Black and Latino professionals working in STEM jobs is 20% lower than the proportion of Black and Latino students graduating with STEM degrees.
RENEW aims to address these gaps and catalyze change through a dynamic coalition of companies that share best practices, create a peer-to-peer mentorship network for other pledgees, and promote the RENEW pledge for wider adoption by other companies.
This work will be founded on six pillars:
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Build and shape an inclusive pipeline and equitable hiring process across all levels and functions
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Create equitable development opportunities for retention and promotion
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Reduce and eradicate any like-for-like racial compensation gap
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Build a diverse procurement and vendor network that supports and promotes equity
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Include minority groups with an equitable company portfolio and brand
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Support organizations and communities advancing equity through communication, donations and action
In order to measure this progress, the pledgees will regularly collect and track the metrics or comparable equivalents and aim for the following group-level aspirational goals by the end of 2025:
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30% Black and Latino new hires
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16% Black and Latino leadership
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100% Black and Latino pay equity
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14% of total vendor spend with minority-owned vendors
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12% of total marketing or business development spend
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2x contributed to equity-related causes
“Achieving equitable outcomes in our city is in all our interests. The companies and executives that are accepting the Mayor’s invitation are demonstrating their willingness to lead,” said Karim Webb, Chief Executive Officer of 4thMVMT and RENEW co-chair. “Together, we will prove we are more successful when we intentionally design pathways for equitable participation as stakeholders in our businesses. And we will invite others to join us along the way.”
The following companies are part of RENEW and have committed to the pledge: 4thMVMT, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Gensler, Morgan Stanley, Relativity Space, SoLA Impact, Soylent, Universal Music Group. The Annenberg Foundation will support and fund the data collection and reporting process.
As part of this process, BCG has worked closely with RENEW and the City’s Civil and Human Rights Department (CHRD) to help stand up the organization and integrate member feedback into task force material. Participants will also receive the RENEW Playbook, a toolkit that provides private sector leaders with the necessary tools to advance racial equity and inclusion within their companies, while sharing lessons and best practices throughout the pledge and data collection process for both task force members and new pledgees.
“We are committed to leveling the playing field and striving towards an equitable Los Angeles, and the members of this task force are central to breaking structural barriers in the private sector,” said Capri Maddox, Executive Director of CHRD. “Our Department will work hand-in-hand with these companies to implement industry diversity metrics, continue to grow this network, and bring forward tangible equity outcomes.”
CHRD and the Mayor’s Office will work closely with RENEW to ensure success of the six pillars, focusing specifically on building and shaping an inclusive pipeline, connecting pledgees to a diverse procurement and vendor network, and providing public-private partnership opportunities for pledgees to support organizations and communities advancing equity.
RENEW will work with the City's Civil and Human Rights Department and private sector partners to develop data collection and reporting processes that incorporate input from all parties, and leverage the proven model utilized by the PledgeLA initiative, a partnership between the Annenberg Foundation, Mayor Garcetti, and the tech and venture capital community. RENEW will utilize the PledgeLA assessment partner, Pluto, to analyze the members’ information and produce and publicly share an anonymized and aggregated group-level progress report to the public. The first report is planned for the end of 2021.
For more information on RENEW, please visit LAMayor.org/RENEW.
Background on Mayor Garcetti’s Racial Equity Executive Directive
Mayor Garcetti signed Executive Directive 27 this summer to study and promote racial equity in City departments. The measure created a City of Los Angeles Racial Equity Task Force, including representatives from every department, to provide feedback on these efforts, identify additional goals, and form working groups to help advance diversity in public service.
Through ED 27, the City will undertake a study of racial disparities in City hiring, promotion, and contracting to gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of these inequities and inform the City’s ability to set policy priorities. And to help lead, coordinate, and drive these efforts, the Mayor named Deputy Mayor Brenda Shockley as L.A.’s first-ever Chief Equity Officer.
ED 27 comes after Mayor Garcetti named Capri Maddox to be the first Executive Director of the newly-established Los Angeles Department of Civil and Human Rights (CHRD). The department will be tasked with protecting Angelenos — and anyone who works in or visits the City of Los Angeles — from discrimination that denies equal treatment in private employment, housing, education, or commerce by initiating and investigating complaints of discrimination, as well as enforcing the L.A. Civil and Human Rights Ordinance.
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