Nike to reveal employee diversity data after shareholder pressure

Nike Inc. has been vocal about working to build a more diverse, inclusive team, and on Thursday announced it would include diversity reporting on its recruitment and promotion practices. The news comes after Nike relented to shareholder pressure from As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy non-profit that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility.

43 percent of Nike’s leadership team is female

As of Nike’s FY2021 reporting, 43 percent of its leadership team is held by women. 30.3 percent of US employees at director level and above are from racial and ethnic minority groups, a 4.1-percentage point increase from FY20 to FY21. The company also said it spent 197 million dollars with diverse suppliers in the the year.

Nike said it aims to reach 45 percent of women in leadership positions globally by 2025 as well as reach a cumulative spend of 1 billion dollars on diverse suppliers by 2025.

The announcement, according to Bloomberg, is that Nike is bowing “to pressure from activist investors to reveal more data on the careers of employees from under-represented groups.”

Shareholder activists As You Sow back in April requested Nike to report the effectiveness of the Company's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (“DEI”). “The reporting should be done at reasonable expense, exclude proprietary information, and address outcomes, using quantitative metrics for recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees, including data by gender, race, and ethnicity.”

As You Sow said investors seek data that shows that Nike’s DEI policies “achieve more than corporate puffery or marketing (referred to as performative allyship or “woke-washing”). If Nike is not integrating best practices into its own operations it may erode the trust and brand loyalty of its key consumer demographics and employees.”

"Investors were concerned that Nike might be seen as inconsistent in its external marketing image and its internal policies and practices if it continued to advertise themes of race and social justice without providing detailed data on the effectiveness of its own internal diversity programs," said As You Sow’s CEO Andrew Behar.

With its commitment to future reporting, Nike joins other companies As You Sow has held constructive conversations with about their disclosure of diversity and inclusion metrics. These include American Express, CVS Health, Gilead, Hasbro, JPMorgan Chase, Lululemon Athletica, Mastercard, McDonald's, MetLife, Morgan Stanley, Netflix, NextEra Energy, Oracle, PayPal, Pfizer, Ross Stores, Union Pacific, and Visa.