CRM giant Salesforce has announced that it will double its number of Black employees in leadership positions within the United States by the end of 2023. The customer relationship management company also said it will also increase overall representation of black employees in the United States by 50 percent by the end of 2023.
Presently, only 1.5 percent of Salesforce’s US leadership team (people at the VP level of above) are Black or African American. So, the goal of Salesforce equates to getting that number to 3 percent. Only 2.9 percent of the US employees of Salesforce identify as Black or African American and this means Salesforce’s goal would be to increase that to about 4.35 percent. Salesforce has 49,000 total employees globally, with over 30,000 of them in the United States.
These new commitments are centered around the previous goal of Salesforce to make sure that half of its workforce is composed of people who identify as either Black, women, Latinx, LGBTQ+, veterans, Indigenous, Multiracial, or people with disabilities. The announcement comes as part of a series of steps the CRM giant is taking to address justice and racial equality.
It comes as part of a widespread reckoning over systemic racism and racial injustice in the United States, following protests over the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black people killed. In June, Microsoft made a similar commitment to increasing Black leadership.
Earlier this year, Tony Prophet was made head of recruiting by Salesforce in addition to his existing role as Chief Equality Officer.
In addition, Salesforce made some outward facing commitments with a purpose to support Black suppliers and businesses. Salesforce announced it will spend $100 million with Black-forward businesses over the next three years and increase spending with minority-owned businesses by 25 percent each year.
