We're Committed to Listening, Learning, and Taking Action

The killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks are heartbreaking, visceral testaments to the long-standing pandemic of racial injustice in this country, and follow countless acts of racism against Black people. How can these tragedies move us collectively forward and effect change?

By committing to do the work. The work of educating ourselves and our organizations about how we contribute to the problem and how we can be part of the solution. This work will often be uncomfortable and difficult, but discomfort is where change begins and learning happens.

We have been committed to our team members, clients and communities for over 100 years⁠—to their success and to their well-being. We hold diversity and inclusion as fundamental principles at our firm. So we commit to do more by investing in this work, with our time and our money, so we can participate in the change we hope to see.

Our immediate work will include accelerating our overall diversity and inclusion initiatives with professional guidance from people who have lived these injustices. We will also formally review and modify our recruitment, hiring, and promotion practices to ensure these initiatives are fully realized. In addition, we will make Juneteenth a paid time off holiday to mark our support for racial equality. We will ask each of our team members to use this time to further their personal education on these issues and to develop ideas about how we as a firm can further address racial inequality. These steps will lead to others that will be a part of the change we are committed to make.

Andy Barrengos
Chairman & CEO