American Express (NYSE:AXP) plans $1B of investments toward promoting diverse representation and equal opportunities for its colleagues, customers, and communities.
This follows on the company's formation of the Office of Enterprise Inclusion, Diversity, and Business Engagement earlier this year.
The company said it has already achieved 100% pay equity for colleagues across genders globally and across races and ethnicities in the U.S. and is committed to maintaining this level going forward, it said.
AmEx actions to support customers and business partners, includes plans:
To double its spend with diverse and minority-owned suppliers in the U.S. to $750M annually by the end of 2024; this includes increasing spend with Black-owned suppliers to at least $100M annually;
To provide access to capital and financial education to at least 250K Black-owned small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S.
To develop more inclusive marketing initiatives, "as well as design and build product experiences and programs that better meet the needs of underrepresented consumer and business customers."
To increase its investment in advocacy and financial education programs geared toward helping underrepresented customers.
Community-focused actions to include providing $50M in grants by 2024-end to support nonprofit organizations led by people of color or underrepresented groups; expanding tis charitable gift-matching initiative; and to increase people of color at its American Express Leadership Academy to 75% in 2024 from 50% in 2019.
