Tuck Launches Initiative on Workplace Inclusion

One of the most pressing imperatives facing business organizations and broader society today is building workplaces that are truly inclusive—along lines including race, gender, and class—and thereby transforming organizations and the broader world.

Today only four of the 500 CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies are Black. Only 29 of the 500 CEOs of the S&P 500 companies are women. The U.S. labor force today contains an estimated 70 million STARS, people who are skilled through alternative (i.e., non-college) routes, a group that encompasses 62 percent of Blacks, 55 percent of Hispanics, and 50 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

“I know of no leader of any world-class organization who does not see workplace inclusion as central to their strategic success in the post-pandemic years ahead,” says Dean Matthew J. Slaughter. "And yet how best to address this imperative is far from fully known. Different organizations have pursued markedly different approaches to harnessing the potential of diversity, often with markedly different outcomes even amidst shared good intentions."

To play a more prominent role in advancing this effort, Tuck is launching the Initiative on Workplace Inclusion. The founding faculty director for this new initiative is Professor of Business Administration Ella Bell Smith, a world-renowned expert on inclusivity in organizations. Bell Smith is a consultant to Fortune 100 and 500 companies and public institutions on the advancement of all women in the workplace, as well as issues related to authentic leadership for both men and women.

The Initiative on Workplace Inclusion will convene thought leaders, practitioners, and students to identify, frame, and debate important topics. It will support research that can be disseminated among scholars, policymakers, and organizations—in particular, research to help overcome the foundational barrier of still-incomplete knowledge on how to build and maintain workplaces with greater racial, gender, and class inclusion. Affiliated faculty will contribute to the Initiative’s research, programming, and student engagement. These faculty will include tenure-track and clinical colleagues at Tuck, adjunct colleagues from across Dartmouth, and colleagues visiting from other schools and institutions. Tuck MBA students will be able to serve as Initiative associates and research assistants. Alumni and other wise, decisive leaders from around the world will be able to participate in events such as roundtables and conferences, and to inform and apply the ideas the Initiative will create through serving on an Initiative Advisory Council. Tuck staff will partner to ensure that the work of all involved is efficient, integrated, and empowering.

The work of this Initiative has already begun. In May, T’22 student associates Lulu Carter and Ashley Barard organized and hosted a virtual roundtable, “Dreaming, Designing, and Building DE&I Spaces.” This roundtable brought together for a series of discussions leaders including Daisy Auger-Dominguez of VICE Medial; the Band of Sisters Co-Founders; Dawson Her Many Horses T'10 of Wells Fargo; Anne Clarke Wolff, David Leal T’10, Sebenza Nkomo T’07, and Dilan Gomih of Independence Point Advisors; and Tuck professors Stacy Blake-Beard and Adam Kleinbaum. Takeaways from this inaugural roundtable will be shared in the weeks ahead on this new Initiative website.

“For generations, the world has rightly called on academia to help meet its most urgent imperatives,” says Slaughter. “By launching the Initiative on Workplace Inclusion, the Tuck School will once again answer this call in our distinct way—harnessing workplace inclusion to better the world through business.”