Originally published by McKinsey.

Diversity wins is the third report in a McKinsey series investigating the business case for diversity. The report follows Why diversity matters (2015) and Delivering through diversity (2018). McKinsey's latest report shows not only that the business case for diversity remains robust, but also that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time. These findings emerge from McKinsey's largest data set so far, encompassing 15 countries and more than 1,000 large companies. By incorporating a 'social listening' analysis of employee sentiment in online reviews, the report also provides new insights into how inclusion matters.

The analysis shows that companies should pay much greater attention to inclusion, even when they are relatively diverse. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile—up from 21% in 2017 and 15% in 2014. Furthermore, the data shows that the greater the representation, the higher the likelihood of outperformance.

Download the report for more insights.

Bibliographic information 

Publishing entities: McKinsey & Company

Publication year: 2020

Region: Global