Most corporate executives these days can recite the benefits of successful diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Strong DEI efforts help recruit and retain talented employees, create workplace environments in which everyone feels valued and enhance corporate reputations with the general public and with customers and clients. Those qualities improve productivity and, ultimately, better financial results.
The critical question, then, is what goes into a DEI program that works? Well, Parsippany-based Deloitte US might be a model. In this installment of NJBIZ Conversations, Editor Jeff Kanige spoke with Lara Abrash, the firm’s CEO about the firm’s DEI efforts, nurturing a corporate culture that sustains that work and her role as a leader in the accounting profession.
“Personally, I think I have a responsibility to give back to the profession — I‘ve been in this for north of 25 years, it’s obviously served me very well — and in a few areas that I think are really important, which is making it a place that the next generation of students coming in and talent coming in really start to see and thrive in this profession,” she said. A lot of people talk about STEM and we could talk about that. I think accounting is actually cooler.”