Starbucks Chair Warns Companies Lacking Boardroom Diversity Risk ‘Dying’
- Some firms ‘committing corporate suicide,’ Hobson says
- ‘We need less talk and more elbow grease on these issues’
Mellody Hobson
Photographer: Calvin Sit/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
American companies eschewing diversity in the boardroom risk “committing corporate suicide,” Starbucks Corp.’s Mellody Hobson said, about a month after taking over as board chair at the coffee giant.
“You can’t be a leading company in the world and not have a diverse board or have a real agenda around diversity without at some point dying as an organization,” Hobson said Wednesday evening at a virtual event sponsored by Bowdoin College. “Now it may take a while, but I do think it will be inevitable.“