Diversity & Inclusion Report 2020

A Letter from Roger

For over a century, Condé Nast has stood for excellence. We’ve embraced innovation, celebrated creativity, and relentlessly sought out stories that demand to be told. And, in this new era of our company, we’ve made it our mission to not simply reflect the culture in which we live, but to help shape that culture with the intention that it should be equitable, inclusive and moving the world forward. The systemic structures of racism and discrimination that many face are unnacceptable and we are committed to doing everything in our power to dismantle them.

With offices in 32 markets around the world and a global footprint that reaches over 1 billion people each month through content published in 26 languages, we are an inherently multicultural organization. Together, we continually strive to serve the widest global audience possible, and this can only be done when our people reflect and represent the world around us. Our aim is to ensure that people of all backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences are represented in every facet of our business.

This first annual Diversity & Inclusion Report offers a mid-year snapshot of the people and practices that are at the heart of everything we do. The report is meant to provide a summary of where we are today, as well as the start of a blueprint for how we will continue to improve. The events of the last few months, within our company and around the world, have made it clear how much work we have to do. We understand that everyone experiences our workplace differently. I appreciate those of you who have shared your  suggestions about how to address those differences and build our channels of trust. It’s my hope that  this report helps clearly outline some of the steps we will take together to be accountable to our goals and values. 

In gathering this data for the first time, you’ll see that we have one of the largest female-identifying workforces (as a percentage of its total) in all of media. Additionally, we are able to see progress this year in our hiring of people from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds when compared to our total U.S. workforce.  The commitments made in this report give specific tactics and an unwavering mandate that will ensure we are building on this progress together.  There is no other option.

Inclusive teams strengthen the quality of our journalism, impacting the ways our audiences understand and see themselves in the world. In the thousands of pieces of content we publish every day, we bring a passion and point of view that is driven by who we are as individuals in the collective whole. A few outstanding examples include GQ’s Change is Good, the brand’s first-ever global collaboration and manifesto focused on diversity, gender equality, sustainability and mental health, and Vogue Mexico’s Voces de Cambio, a video series highlighting the stories of Mexican and Latin American women who have vocally addressed issues of representation and diversity in their fields. One of our newest and fastest growing brands, them., exemplifies how our desire to meet today’s audience where they are drove us to create one of the only platforms solely dedicated to seeing the world through an LGBTQ+ lens. These and many more examples can be seen in this report, which show our brands are united under a common mission.

As Condé Nast continues to come together as one global company and as we redefine what it means to create and publish content, a strong culture led by diverse teams is a priority in our evolution. To start, over the last year I've been focused on building an executive leadership team that can lead the industry in representation. It's my priority that this team reflects, as best we can, not only our employee composition, but also our aspirations of where we want it to be. We've moved the needle quickly and in the last year doubled the number of women on this team to 60%. In addition, 30% identify as LGBTQ+ and 20% are of racially diverse backgrounds. Our composition at this most senior level is key because this group will be building the teams and making the decisions for our company that will define us for decades to come.

Beyond diversity in our workforce composition, fostering inclusivity is of equal importance as we provide channels and opportunity for everyone to contribute to the success of our business. Employee-led groups like our Global Employee Council for Diversity & Inclusion and employee resource groups (ERGs) are pivotal to building our culture, enhancing our community and providing professional growth opportunities. Since launching these initiatives in 2019 and 2018, respectively, over 1,100 employees have participated and we continue to see interest grow.

The data in this report will be updated in January so that it provides a comprehensive look at our efforts in 2020. Thank you for your support and collaboration. There’s so much more to come.

Roger Lynch
CEO

Our Commitments

Condé Nast is dedicated to meaningful, action-driven commitments and goals to change ourselves and the media landscape from the inside out. In 2020 we outlined these priorities as they are the building blocks we’re creating to provide a lasting impact.

Employee Diversity

  • We are committed to seeing the ethnic and racial diversity of our new hires increase each year and to accomplish this, recruitment and retention efforts will be a primary focus.

  • We will strive to build a robust pipeline of diverse candidates, ensuring jobs are posted publicly, both internally and externally, and that our recruitment capabilities are well-resourced.

  • We are also launching a new U.S. internship program in 2021 that will prioritize participation among young people from a wide range of backgrounds and schools, including community programs and schools outside of a traditional four-year institution. We are also in the process of collecting information from all our markets on their career development programs.

  • Working with our hiring managers, we are committed to ensuring that every year 50% of candidates on hiring slates are from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.

  • As we assess our diversity and inclusion policies and processes to determine where we need to focus our efforts, we have asked U.S. employees to update and provide diversity data about themselves voluntarily. We plan to use this data to strengthen our recruitment, progression and retention efforts around the globe.

  • We acknowledge and will continue to support the unique strengths and talents that come from having a majority-female workforce. We are also committed to measuring employees who identify as gender non-binary or choose not to identify their gender.

  • Creating fair and consistent compensation systems and processes is our priority. To best capture the comprehensive way we are looking at our compensation, as well as provide an update to the commitments we’ve made to improve our systems, we are building a Compensation Guide in the U.S. that will detail our new systems including job architecture which includes job leveling, ongoing pay equity analysis, ongoing peer-to-peer analysis and more.

Leadership

  • We are committed to elevating and promoting diverse and underrepresented employees and helping to grow their careers.

  • To this end, we will be launching global succession planning in 2021 and will be identifying high-potential employees to ensure these leaders have individual career growth plans tailored to their skills, talents and career goals.

Content

  • As we diversify our team, we are confident that the content we create will reflect the topics and stories most important to our communities.

  • To help us get there, we are committed to begin new practices to support diversity among our freelancers and contributors, including photographers.

Training and Benefits

  • By 2021, 100% of our global employees will undergo mandatory unconscious bias and anti-racism training.

  • Juneteenth is now an annual paid holiday in the U.S.

  • We will continue to review our global holiday and benefits practices to ensure we are addressing market-specific needs.

Charting the Future

These five tangible goals will hold us accountable as we continue to create an equitable and inclusive approach to recruitment, retention and talent development.

Ascending Graph Block
Building our pipeline

Working with our hiring managers, we are committed to ensuring that 50% of candidates on hiring slates each year are from a diverse background, in the U.S. where we can collect this data.

Celebrating our people

Our first-ever LGBTQ+ employee survey will gather data on a voluntary basis and be included in our 2020 full year report — making us one of the first media companies to do so.

Identifying talent 

Global succession planning will identify high-potential employees to ensure these leaders have individual career growth plans tailored to their skills, talents and career goals.

Creating Inclusive Content

We are committed to begin new practices to support diversity among our freelancers and contributors, including photographers.

Empowering Our Workforce

By 2021, 100% of our global employees will undergo mandatory unconscious bias and anti-racism training.

1
Building our pipeline

Working with our hiring managers, we are committed to ensuring that 50% of candidates on hiring slates each year are from a diverse background, in the U.S. where we can collect this data.

2
Celebrating our people

Our first-ever LGBTQ+ employee survey will gather data on a voluntary basis and be included in our 2020 full year report — making us one of the first media companies to do so.

3
Identifying talent 

Global succession planning will identify high-potential employees to ensure these leaders have individual career growth plans tailored to their skills, talents and career goals.

4
Creating Inclusive Content

We are committed to begin new practices to support diversity among our freelancers and contributors, including photographers.

5
Empowering Our Workforce

By 2021, 100% of our global employees will undergo mandatory unconscious bias and anti-racism training.

Our Stories

We strive to create inspiring and engaging content, experiences and products that are as diverse as the audiences we serve.

Our 2020 Data

Total Global Gender
U.S. Ethnicity
Total Global Gender
U.S. Ethnicity
Total Global Gender
U.S. Ethnicity
Total Global Gender
U.S. Ethnicity
Total Global Gender
U.S. Ethnicity
Total Global Gender
U.S. Ethnicity

*OPTIONS TO SELECT NON-BINARY OR DECLINE TO ANSWER WILL BE INTRODUCED TO ALL MARKETS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR AND REPORTED IN OUR 2021 DATA.

ALL DATA REPRESENTS JANUARY 1, 2020 THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 2020. TOTALS MAY NOT ADD UP TO 100% DUE TO ROUNDING. DATA WAS SUPPLIED BY THE CONDÉ NAST PEOPLE TEAM AND WILL BE UPDATED THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. GENDER DATA REFLECTS OUR GLOBAL WORKFORCE WHILE RACE AND ETHNICITY DATA REFLECTS OUR U.S. WORKFORCE ONLY, WHERE WE CAN LEGALLY COLLECT SUCH INFORMATION. ALL DATA EXCLUDES FREELANCERS. EDITORIAL DATA INCLUDES CONDÉ NAST ENTERTAINMENT AND SENIOR LEADERSHIP IS DEFINED AS THE TOP THREE OF ELEVEN POSSIBLE JOB LEVELS AT THE COMPANY.