Insights
Russell Reynolds Associates: Fortune 500 General Counsel Succession: Leveling the Playing Field to Create Equity
Attracting and retaining diverse talent has become a top priority for many organizations and it is reflected in Fortune 500 general counsel appointments.
This group of top GCs has steadily become more diverse over the eight years that Russell Reynolds Associates has tracked the data, a trend that gained fresh momentum from the heightened focus on racial justice in 2020.
In this report, we take a data-driven view of Fortune 500 companies’ efforts to diversify their GC hires, focusing particularly on the career paths of women and ethnically diverse GCs. This analysis offers new insights for CEOs, CHROs and GCs who want to develop a sustainable pipeline of diverse legal talent. We look at:
- Persistent pain points in the GC succession process (despite an increasing number of diverse GC hires)
- Key steps that CEOs, CHROs and GCs can take to make internal talent development processes more robust and equitable
- New strategies for approaching external executive searches to help diversify candidate slates and improve hiring decisions
Thought leadership category