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Will Comcast's First Diversity & Inclusion Chief Be Able to

Published: Apr 14, 2011

 CSR       

Comcast has a new diversity chief.

The first-ever that is.

Maria Arias will serve as Comcast's Executive Director of Diversity and Inclusion. According to a press release, the cable operator--approved by regulators to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal only this past January--created the position to focus on "organizing Comcast's diversity program strategy."

The focus of the program: Recruitment and career development, suppliers, programming, and community investment.

According to Businesswire, Arias will also work closely with the Comcast Internal Diversity Council and the newly-created Comcast/NBCUniversal Joint External Diversity Advisory Council "to coordinate the execution of diversity and inclusion initiatives across the entire company."

As for the company's record in diversity hiring and retention: As of 2008, minorities accounted for 39 percent of its employee base while gender equity stood at 35 percent female. (See below for a glimpse of its demographic breakdown from Vault's 2009 Diversity Survey)

Comcast's Diversity Recruitment and Retention stats

Further, according to the company's 2010 10-K, all seven executive officers are men.

As for Arias' career ladder, while she has only been a Comcast employee since 2007, she has managed to hold four positions over four years, with her most recent stint being VP of operations for the Southern Colorado systems.

Now that two renowned companies are one, let's hope Arias can improve on some of these statistics.

(Businesswire)

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