I worked at a company where, year after year, most Black women were being assessed with exceeding performance expectations reviews.
Yet, the company's promotion rate for Black women lagged significantly behind their white male and white female counterparts. The leadership never gathered, looked at the data or was blind to the optics. Thus, they did not hold management accountable for the reality of their work norms that shut Black women out of executive leadership out of power.
As a result, (1) when the company attracted prospective Black women, they quickly saw that the multicultural photographs on the company website (DEI page) did not represent the leadership, and they left. And (2) after prolonged careers of perpetual lateral moves, those top performers left for higher positions at other companies.
The company eventually invested in a study by female leaders at the company when they kept losing money because of talent leakage. The results yielded a series of recommendations for Black women by Black women. It included talent pipelines, deliberate mentorship, targeted sponsorship, and data-driven performance metrics/targets for leaders. I had already left, but it was nice to see they promoted many deserving Black women throughout the years on LinkedIn.
No one's in the C-suite yet, but I want to believe (hope) they're in the succession pipeline now.