In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Dow stepped forward to demonstrate its care for our Black employees and its commitment to take action against racial inequality. On May 31, 2020, Dow CEO Jim Fitterling posted a blog on the company’s website called: You matter. Let’s ACT. It was a call to be allies. It was a call to act. He wrote: “There’s a lot of work to do here to overcome hundreds of years of systemic oppression, but I am committed to helping Team Dow find a way.”
To discover “that” way, Jim hosted a virtual conversation attended by more than 1,100 colleagues, including Dow’s entire executive leadership team. This town hall was sponsored by GAAN, and attended by Black employees and their allies.
The goal was to listen so that leadership could determine actions that would drive real and meaningful change inside and outside of Dow. The result was a holistic plan to address systemic racism and racial inequality, approved by our Board of Directors, called Dow ACTs. ACT is an acronym for three action areas: Advocacy … Community engagement … and our own Talent pipeline.