90% of multicultural women who work at General Mills say the company supports diversity.

This consumer-brand titan may be famous for its leading cereals, snacks and processed convenience foods, but it hopes to one day be known as a leader in diversity as well. “If a woman of color has a thirst for learning and a focus on results, this is the place for her,” says Kelly Baker, a VP in the HR department, who is African-American. While multicultural women make up just 7% of all U.S. employees, they are on the move, representing 18% of last year’s salaried hires, 16% of management hires and 23% of rehires. Executive coaches have been brought in to work with high-performing Hispanic, African-American and Asian managers, and there’s an 18-month executive comentoring program that pairs senior leaders with director-level women and people of color. To enforce accountability, the Executive Diversity Council sets annual diversity and inclusion objectives, which seem to be paying off: Multicultural employees hold three times as many officer positions, and women more than twice as many, as they did in 1999. Impressively, more than one third of all multicultural female professionals were granted promotions or given lateral assignments to expand their career horizons last year.

Multicultural Women 7%
Chairman & CEO Ken Powell
VP, Diversity & Inclusion Kenneth Charles

At General Mills, multicultural women represent…
3% of corporate executives
5% of senior managers
7% of the top earners
12% of the company hires
9% of the company losses
26% of participants in mentoring programs
9% of participants in career counseling programs

*Denotes a member of the Top 5 Best Companies for Multicultural Women