The move to make diversity head counts transparent has been a widespread response to beauty veteran and Uoma Beauty founder and chief executive officer Sharon Chuter’s “Pull Up for Change” campaign. The social media initiative asks companies to reveal how many Black employees they have and further specify how many Black employees hold leadership positions. Major beauty businesses such as Estée Lauder, Shiseido, Revlon, Tatcha and Beautycounter have revealed their numbers.
In the fall of 2019, Gorgla left her job as an executive director at the Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. to start 25BWB after sensing a deep inequity for Black women working in the beauty industry, she said. Gorgla is a mechanical engineer by trade and has worked across several industries, including consulting and financial services. The beauty industry, she said, proved the most uncomfortable environment as a Black executive she experienced, she said.
L’Oréal Paris has responded to public backlash from Munroe Bergdorf, the Black transgender model who was fired by the company in 2017 after speaking out publicly about racism at a white supremacy demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. L’Oréal Paris announced this week that it has added Bergdorf to the board of L’Oréal Paris U.K.
But sources said beauty businesses big and small are looking — some for the first time — to diversify their ranks across all levels by actively recruiting and retaining Black employees and executives. To do that, it will take a commitment to fostering young Black talent and filling high-ranking roles with Black executives, outreach to universities and professional organizations and a top-down shift in culture to get there.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before, never,” Abe said. “Change is coming and it’s being implemented whether you’re forced to do it or not.” For their part, companies should be having discussions on multiple levels — actively considering Black candidates for open roles, and building out pipelines of Black candidates, Abe said.
Neal Semel, cofounder of Diversity Matters, an Ohio-based diversity and inclusion training consultancy, said changing a company’s culture is often “a slow build.” “The shift that has to take place from vetting and recruitment and organizational design, there has to be that empathetic leadership in place in order to really support the long-term opportunity for really changing the fabric of what inclusion means for a company,” said Ringus. “If you’re not an empathetic leader of your people [with] an authentic leadership style and willingness to hear the thoughts of your employees, there’s going to be some challenges,” Ringus said.