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Here’s a not-so-fun fact: Black people make up 13% of the US population, but as of 2020, only 3% of Association of National Advertisers (ANA) CMOs.
That’s why Jerri DeVard, former head of marketing at companies like ADT and Office Depot, recently founded the Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA).
- The organization aims to address the “corporate diversity gap,” per a press release shared with Marketing Brew.
- It’s made up of 26 Black executives from companies like Adidas, Netflix, Peloton, and Unilever.
Special sauce: BECA will use four “ships” as guideposts: internship, mentorship, sponsorship, and scholarship. Membership fees fund those initiatives, and some members plan to raise money for scholarships or provide internships to mentees.
- “We are building an inventory and a database of young marketing professionals who we believe have the promise, the intellect, the background, [and] the experience [to succeed in the marketing industry],” DeVard told Marketing Brew.
- “We're providing rare access to these rockstar C-suite leaders who are going to talk about the playbook of how they overcame the odds,” DeVard continued.
Looking ahead: Organizations like AdColor and 600 & Rising are trying to address systemic inequities on Madison Avenue—and these C-suite marketers want to use their influence to take action, too. — PB