When the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a worldwide racial reckoning in 2020, corporations and individuals alike rallied at an unprecedented scale to pledge their commitment to advancing racial justice.

In the wonder realm, the Estée Lauder Cos. and Unilever each made commitments to extend spend with diverse ingredient and packaging suppliers; LVMH Möet Hennessy Louis Vuitton sent out an internal memo declaring its “unyielding dedication to inclusivity” and rolled out plans for unconscious bias worker trainings; L’Oréal established a Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Board, and Procter & Gamble launched its “Tackle Race” fund to support racial justice organizations. The list goes on.

A typical theme among the many flurry of company-issued statements within the weeks that followed was a pledge to speed up diverse representation across the workforce, particularly on the leadership level. It was on no account the primary time corporations had made commitments of the like, but between the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, heightened racial tensions and a looming, high-stakes presidential election, many felt the prospect of progress toward corporate accountability by way of diversity and inclusion was more tangible than ever.

Three years later, the trail to progress by way of gender and racial equity has proven removed from straightforward.

While headway has indeed been made in some regards — as an example, quite a few beauty’s biggest manufacturers have achieved or are nearing gender parity on their boards of directors and executive committees — it has lagged in others, like representation of ladies of color within the upper echelons of those same corporations.

“We’re moving in the correct direction, but we should not moving fast enough,” said Aniela Unguresan, founder and chief executive officer of Edge Empower, a firm which develops diversity, equity and inclusivity strategies for 250-plus corporations including Firmenich and L’Oréal.

In 2017 — when Beauty Inc first began tracking female representation in the wonder industry — not one of the 10 largest beauty manufacturers had reached gender parity on their boards. L’Oreal took the highest spot that 12 months with a female board composition of 46 percent, while Amorepacific Group, Beiersdorf and Kao Group all had no women on their boards, let alone women of color.

Even Coty Inc. on the time had just one female board member and one woman on its executive committee.

But today, the image is different. Coty’s executive committee and board are each majority-female. Coty can be one in every of only two corporations in the highest 20 — alongside Bath and Body Works — to be led by a female chief executive officer, following Sue Nabi’s appointment to the role in July 2020. Gina Boswell is the pinnacle of BBW.

Because the only serving transgender CEO of a serious multinational fragrance and cosmetics corporation worldwide, Nabi’s appointment — like all high-ranking appointment of a member of an underrepresented group — is very important on many levels.

“When people feel like they’ll see themselves in an organization, in any respect levels of the corporate, that affects how they feel about whether or not promotions are fair, whether or not they feel pay is fair, whether or not they feel their manager involves them in decisions that affect their work,” said Michael C. Bush, CEO of diversity data company Great Place to Work. “We don’t just take a look at representation by itself, we glance to see whether representation affects the worker experience — and it does.”

Just ask E.l.f. Beauty CEO Tarang Amin, who has now led the corporate through multiple consecutive quarters of net sales growth, including most recently the acquisition of Naturium for $355 million in August. “Our worker base is a competitive advantage,” he said in an interview with Beauty Inc earlier this 12 months.

The corporate is one in every of only 4 public corporations within the U.S. with a board of directors composed of no less than two-thirds women and one-third minority representation, and E.l.f.’s workforce of 330 is greater than 75 percent women and greater than 40 percent diverse.

“It’s crucial to not prioritize cultural uniformity. It’s vital to achieve beyond the same old circles of familiarity, even when which means investing more effort and time [into a search],” said Shella Abe, co-head of consumer practice at global recruitment firm True Search.

Simply put, a various worker makeup is sweet business.

The truth is, data from McKinsey shows corporations in the highest quartile for gender diversity within the C-suite were 25 percent more likely than corporations within the fourth quartile to have above-average profitability; in the case of ethnic diversity, this likelihood jumps to 36 percent.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion programs don’t exist to create privileges for a part of the worker population based on their identities — they exist to create higher, more sustainable, agile and resilient businesses,” said Unguresan.

Yet data from Edge shows that despite comprising a median 69 percent of the private care industry’s total workforce, women make up just 36 percent of the highest management level. Results of a spring 2023 survey taken by 4,000 personal care industry employees indicate that age, race/ethnicity, and disability — in that order — are perceived to be the highest aspects inhibiting an individual’s likelihood of getting hired within the industry.

Because of initiatives like Nasdaq’s Board Diversity Rule, which requires corporations listed on its U.S. exchange to publicly disclose board-level diversity statistics annually, board diversity is anticipated to steadily improve. By the tip of 2025, corporations listed on the Nasdaq should have no less than two diverse board directors — or have the ability to clarify why they don’t. 

“If an organization desires to make statements to the world about what it’s doing by way of diversity, equity and belonging, it is best to know that’s going to be just right for you and against you. And since verification could be very easy for the buyer today — it will possibly very easily work against you,” said Bush.

Excluding privately owned Chanel Beauty and Mary Kay, neither of whom commented on the composition of their boards nor display this information publicly, the remaining 18 largest beauty manufacturers, as measured by global sales within the 2023 WWD Beauty Inc Top 100, have a mean average 36 percent female board composition. Executive committees among the many top 18 corporations — excluding Chanel and LG Household & Health Care which declined to comment — average 34 percent women representation.

Founded in 2020, the Women on Boards Project is one organization aiming to spice up diverse board representation, having placed 50 women (10 of whom have been women of color) on boards of consumer goods corporations including The Honey Pot Co., Easy Mills and female care brand, Lola. 

“We put the pressure on private equity groups — a few of whom shall be sitting on two to a few board seats, all representing the identical voice — to present up their board seat or nominate an independent [director],” said Brianna Rizzo, a talent manager at VMG Partners and board member of WOBP, adding that while recent diversity mandates by Nasdaq and Goldman Sachs are needed to turning the tide on the publicly traded company level, “there continues to be no accountability for early-stage consumer corporations.” 

One could argue that there isn’t enough accountability for giant corporations, either, in the case of disclosing the racial makeup of their leadership teams — a framework even fewer were willing to reveal.

In some cases that is as a result of legal restrictions regarding the gathering of race and ethnicity data in countries like France, where L’Oréal and LVMH Möet Hennessy Louis Vuitton are headquartered. In most others, corporations simply weren’t willing to publicize this information.

In all, seven of beauty’s 20 biggest corporations shared with Beauty Inc the number of ladies of color on their boards and executive committees. Those boards have a mean average 21 percent women of color representation, and inside their executive committees, a mean average 10 percent women of color representation. (For reference, 2021 data from Catalyst indicates women of color comprise just over 20 percent of the U.S. population).

In an effort to extend transparency and trust, some corporations have begun releasing annual progress updates with regard to the racial and gender composition of their workforce.

Natura & Co., for instance, has set targets in Brazil — its largest market — to achieve 40 percent representation of Black employees by 2025, and 30 percent in management positions by 2030. 

Henkel, meanwhile, goals to achieve gender parity across all management levels by 2025 and reported that in 2022, women accounted for 39 percent of its management positions. 

The Estée Lauder Cos. will reveal in its Social Impact & Sustainability Report set to be released next month that the corporate met its goal to realize global pay equity across R&D, supply chain including manufacturing and distribution and company functions, and types and regions globally.

Beiersdorf reached its goal to realize gender parity across global leadership positions in January of this 12 months — ahead of its 2025 objective — however it stays that the corporate only has one woman of color on its 12-person board, and no women of color on its executive committee. 

“Diversity, equity and inclusion just isn’t a program you run for one 12 months and then you definately’re done with it — it’s a lens that should be embedded in all of the talent management processes, in all of the human capital strategies, in all of the core business operations of the organization — it’s an ongoing process,” Unguresan said.  

In what seemed to be an effort to perform that, a plethora of chief diversity officer roles were created in 2020 — only for a lot of to have already been eliminated within the time since, while others have struggled to retain occupancy.

Data from Great Place to Work shows the common chief diversity officer stays of their role for roughly 2.5 years, namely as a result of lack of support and resources. And that revolving door has been apparent — this past summer alone, Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery all announced their diversity, equity and inclusion executives were departing the businesses. 

“We put a whole lot of expectations behind the role of the chief diversity officer, which just isn’t to unravel the issue for the corporate — it’s to empower the corporate to effectively tackle those problems,” said Unguresan.  

Apart from missteps in establishing chief diversity officers for achievement, businesses in beauty and beyond have been criticized for what many perceive to be performative allyship fairly than a real dedication to moving the needle. For some such corporations, momentum on the variety and equity front has slowed significantly since 2020.

“We saw a whole lot of corporations who made commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion in 2020 made minimal investments, after which became frustrated when their employees, shareholders and the general public held them to account,” said Joelle Emerson, cofounder and CEO of diversity, equity and inclusion training platform Paradigm IQ. “Diversity, equity and inclusion can’t be performative — it must be a priority to achieve success.”

Some posit that the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic reversal of affirmative motion in college admissions this past summer may create a spillover effect and encourage backlash — or precisely the type of de-prioritization that results in failure — in the case of corporations’ diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Janou Pakter, who cofounded recruiting company Būro Talent alongside Damian Chiam in 2014 and has since placed executives at Chanel, Aesop, Jo Malone and other fashion and wonder corporations, has already seen this begin to take effect.

“We had one comment recently from a client who said, ‘Oh, we don’t must worry about that anymore,’ in regard to diverse hiring — that was shocking,” said Pakter.

“Those corporations who were never truly convinced of the business value of diversity, equity and inclusion, who engaged in it only because they felt the social pressure to — they’re the almost certainly to discontinue their efforts after the Supreme Court decision,” said Unguresan.

But for those aiming to embed a real commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion into the material of their corporations, the learnings from the past three years are there.

“With regards to diversity, equity and inclusion, we’re very used to throwing money at the issue fairly than understanding the foundation causes,” added Unguresan. “There was this trend of, ‘let’s run an unconscious bias training, let’s have a mentorship program’ — those are vital, yes, however the only option to stay on track is to deal with the particular needs of the organization, and sometimes corporations do skip this primary step in getting an honest view of where they’re.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts that don’t extend beyond the hiring process and into an organization’s on a regular basis culture do nothing to meaningfully challenge the established order of underrepresentation on the leadership level — or any level, because they don’t address worker retention.

“Leaders who’re excellent at leading only people like them they should not good at leading people who find themselves different than them. So you may check that box, but that person goes to depart — which has been happening,” said Bush.

Diversity within the Top 20

L’Oréal

Women on Board of Directors: 44 percent (7 out of 16) 

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 31 percent (6 out of 19)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Unilever 

Women on Board of Directors: 38 percent (5 out of 13)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 17 percent (2 out of 12)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

The Estée Lauder Cos.

Women on Board of Directors: 44 percent (7 out of 16) 

Women of Color on Board of Directors: 19 percent (3 out of 16)

Women on Executive Committee: 33 percent (5 out of 15) 

Women of Color on Executive Committee: 13 percent (2 out of 15)

P&G 

Women on Board of Directors: 46 percent (6 out of 13)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: 15 percent (2 out of 13) 

Women on Executive Committee: 32 percent (11 out of 34)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: 9 percent (3 out of 34)

Shiseido

Women on Board of Directors: 40 percent (6 out of 15)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 32 percent (7 out of twenty-two)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

LVMH Möet Hennessy Louis Vuitton

Women on Board of Directors: 50 percent (8 out of 16)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 13 percent (2 out of 15)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Beiersdorf 

Women on Board of Directors: 42 percent (5 out of 12)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: 8 percent (1 out of 12)

Women on Executive Committee: 44 percent (4 out of 9)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: 0 percent (0 out of 9)

Chanel (Declined to reveal)

Natura & Co 

Women on Board of Directors: 22 percent (2 out of 9) 

Women of Color on Board of Directors: 22 percent (2 out of 9)

Women on Executive Committee: 25 percent (2 out of 8)  

Women of Color on Executive Committee: 0 percent (0 out of 8) 

 

Coty

Women on Board of Directors: 55 percent (6 out of 11)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 60 percent (3 out of 5) 

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Bath and Body Works 

Women on Board of Directors: 46 percent (6 out of 13)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: 23 percent (3 out of 13)

Women on Executive Committee: 67 percent (4 out of 6)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: 17 percent (1 out of 6)

Kao Corp.

Women on Board of Directors: 21 percent (3 out of 14)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 10 percent (3 out of 30)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Kenvue 

Women on Board of Directors: 36 percent (4 out of 11)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 59 percent (10 out of 17)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Mary Kay (Declined to comment; publicly available information included)

Women on Executive Committee: 46 percent (6 out of 13)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Henkel

Women on Board of Directors: 20 percent (1 out of 5)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 20 percent (1 out of 5) 

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Puig (Declined to comment)

Women on Board of Directors: 14 percent (2 out of 14)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 44 percent (4 out of 9)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

Colgate Palmolive

Women on Board of Directors: 40 percent (4 out of 10)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Women on Executive Committee: 38 percent (10 out of 26)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: Didn’t disclose

AmorePacific Group 

Women on Board of Directors: 17 percent (1 out of 6)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: 17 percent (1 out of 6)

Women on Executive Committee: 21 percent (13 out of 62)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: 21 percent (13 out of 62)

LG Household & Health Care (Declined to comment)

Women on Board of Directors: 29 percent (2 out of seven)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: Didn’t disclose

Kose 

Women on Board of Directors: 42 percent (5 out of 12)

Women of Color on Board of Directors: 42 percent (5 out of 12) 

Women on Executive Committee: 10 percent (1 out of 10)

Women of Color on Executive Committee: 10 percent (1 out of 10)