DEI dominates conversation among CEOs

DEI dominates conversation among CEOs

DEI dominates conversations at Davos

There are three buzzwords among politicians and business leaders at this year’s World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland: diversity, equity and inclusion.

It’s no surprise DEI is on corporate leaders’ minds, since it’s been front and center at the White House as well.

“My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense,” President Donald Trump said Thursday during a virtual appearance in Davos. “America will once again become a merit-based country.”

Trump signed an executive order his first day in office aimed at dismantling the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. The order as written only applies to federal government employers, but he also mentioned extending his executive order to private institutions in his comments at Davos.

Following his executive order, his administration has also targeted affirmative action in federal contracting and ordered all federal DEI staff be put on paid leave.

On the ground in Davos, DEI has been the subject of conversation both on the record and behind closed doors, with discussions including the potential of ditching the commonly used acronym and changing external communication around certain policies.

Most corporate leaders who spoke to CNBC across the first four days of the summit reiterated that while the language may change and internal policies may be tweaked, company values will remain the same.

Here’s what executives had to say:

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO

Adena Friedman, Nasdaq CEO

Bill Ready, Pinterest CEO

Chuck Robbins, Cisco CEO

Robert Smith, Vista Equity Partners CEO

Alexandr Wang, Scale AI CEO

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