Professor Keon West recently wrote for The Independent to explain what science and studies say about Trump’s approach and how it would impact on DEI - noting that while “ DEI’s track record of successfully improving diversity and inclusion” was “inconsistent”, years of research indicated Trump’s executive order would not accomplish any of the goals it set out to.
However, when probed over whether businesses were suddenly changing policies around diversity due to the White House’s position, Richard Gnodde, Goldman Sachs vice chair, said: "I can only speak for ourselves, I don't think that's the case,” instead explaining the company felt “that [DEI] policy was put in place to try and drive a change in behaviour and I think that's happened.".
Goldman Sachs have become the latest company to scrap their diversity programmes following the Trump administration’s signing of an executive order which was aimed at ending "radical and wasteful government DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] programs".
Meanwhile, after reports in the Financial Times that Deloitte were also set to “sunset” their DEI programmes in the US, the boss of Deloitte UK has signalled they remain “committed to our diversity goals”.
DEI programmes were put in place at Goldman Sachs to pledge that they would only aid a business listing shares on a stock exchange if it had two diverse board members, one of which had to be a woman.
