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Prudential deepens commitment to advance racial equity

Aug. 5, 2020

The company launches specific actions to amplify its ongoing work to drive meaningful, enduring progress, starting immediately.

Prudential recently announced nine commitments to advance racial equity, listed below. These commitments span the company’s talent practices, how it designs and delivers its products, its investments and public policy work, and its support of community institutions working to remove persistent obstacles to Black economic empowerment.

   

“Driving progress toward racial equity is a moral and business imperative that aligns directly with our company’s purpose to solve the financial challenges of our changing world.”

Charles Lowrey,
Chairman and CEO, Prudential

   
   

These commitments build upon and accelerate Prudential’s long-standing efforts to drive inclusion and diversity within the company and to eliminate the structural barriers that for generations have prevented Black Americans from attaining financial security.

The commitments were first shared with employees in an email from Chairman and CEO Charles Lowrey and Vice Chairman Rob Falzon on July 21, then shared publicly during Prudential’s second-quarter earnings call on August 5. Progress on all nine commitments is already underway.

These commitments were born out of the courageous candor of nearly 7,000 Prudential employees, who shared their experiences and expectations in more than 125 employee forums on racial equity across the company.

“Driving progress toward racial equity is a moral and business imperative that aligns directly with our company’s purpose to solve the financial challenges of our changing world,” said Lowrey. “We stand by the promises we make, and we are prepared to be judged for our actions to support our colleagues, customers, shareholders and communities today and over the long term.”

Prudential’s Commitments to Advance Racial Equity:

Taking action for our people

  • Evaluate and improve our talent practices—hiring, promotion, performance management, development and compensation—to ensure equal opportunity for all employees.
  • Establish representation goals for people of color at all levels, including senior-most executives, and tie executive compensation to these goals.
  • Mandate anti-racism and other inclusion training for all U.S. employees.
  • Create greater transparency of our diversity data.
  • Mark Juneteenth as a day of education and reflection to continue our learning. Make Election Day a “no meeting day” to extend our policy offering scheduling flexibility to enable our associates to exercise their right to vote.

Taking action through our businesses

  • Design and deliver products, services and operations in every business and function to improve racial equity outcomes.
  • Allocate resources for research and development capital to incubate inclusive products, services and distribution channels.

Taking action in society

  • Accelerate our social justice public policy agenda, focusing on criminal justice reform, police reforms addressing racism, voting rights and closing the racial wealth gap.
  • Allocate resources to invest in institutions, ventures and high-impact nonprofits working to remove structural barriers to Black economic empowerment.

Media Contact(s)

Harold Banks
973-216-4833
harold.banks@prudential.com

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