Each quarter, this podcast researches the leadership of companies involved in the delivery of IT services, and classifies the racial diversity of those teams. Monitoring 301 companies, this quarter’s report tracks three thousand, two hundred forty four humans. Identified on the website of each organization, they are then classified as white, and then nonwhite, as well as specifically Black. Additionally, they are classified as male or female.
For Q1 2022, 87.73% of those tracked are white, up from 86.18% last quarter. 79.75% male, down from 80.32% last quarter.
Publicly traded companies are more diverse and more female than the total population. Fortune 1000 companies are as well.
Technology providers as a whole are roughly on par with the total population, as are views of vendors. The smaller group of those who self-report… are significantly more diverse than the overall cohort.
For the first time, we’re also publishing trends data. These are graphs of the data over time. It’s available as a download at businessof.tech.
These paint a different picture.
Overall, the leadership teams are getting more white, not less. In the first data set in September 2020, leadership teams were 82.31% White. Now that number has increased to 87.73%. That’s been pulled from the overall “non-white” number, as Black has generally hovered just below 2%.
When viewing on gender, the leadership teams remain roughly 80% male and 20% female, showing a very gently sloped increase in female leadership.
On race, this isn’t getting better, that’s why. Lots of talk, little change, at least not at the top.
I wanted to observe how the factor that does appear to be making a difference is size – both in Fortune 1000 companies, and those that achieve the scale to be publicly traded. These manage to be somewhat more diverse… although the trend line is in the wrong direction.
On gender, there does appear to be general positive movement. It’s a slow progression up….. although remains at 20%. I’ll observe that in the industry, there have been “Women in Technology” discussions for years – and roughly 1% increase per year on these metrics. Do we really want to be another 30 years before it’s equal?
I maintain that the reason to care about this data is that in order to sell to the most customers, you have to understand them, and have perspectives from all. Leaders reflect their organizations, so if you want a diverse organization, it should be led by a diverse leadership team. The end result would be better understanding, better products and services, better sales, and better organizations.