As a woman of color, it is important that when I consider employment with your organization, I see representations of myself in roles across the spectrum — including at the senior level. I’m not suggesting that job qualifications are irrelevant, of course, but I’m asking you to adjust your lens to look past gender and color for talent. Better still, look at women of color and recognize that your organization is in need of their talent.

Women of color are equipped with a tried-by-fire strength that stems from endurance, perseverance, and survivorship. Their formal education is greatly enhanced by the type of intelligence not found in books. Women of color know how to love with a strained, frayed heart and can face their fears without batting an eye.

As CEOs, mamas, and in every other role, women of color manage, create, innovate, strategize, and multitask. But even after adding these powers to their degrees and specializations, they remain a small piece of the diversity, equity, and inclusion chart, especially in the upper echelons.

The Lean In organization found that for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 58 Black women are promoted, despite the fact that Black women ask for promotions at the same rate as men. This creates a deficiency in the number of Black women to promote at every level, increasing the representation gap.

Interestingly, women of color are projected to become the workforce majority by 2060. Not only that, but they come bearing gifts: US $1 trillion in their role as consumers and $361 billion as entrepreneurs. Talk about having a major impact on the marketplace. Clearly, companies without women of color are not going to succeed to the degree they would if they hired them. Indeed, these stats suggest businesses would be foolish to let their organization’s talent pool be tainted by a lack of equitable opportunities for women of color. Equity aside, businesses are looking to see that your products or services have been vetted by a diverse group of individuals.

Figure 1 shows the five steps businesses can take to create equitable opportunities for women of color in a meaningful, sustainable, measurable way.

[For more on these five steps, see:  “Prioritizing & Elevating Women of Color.”]