In the last couple years, the conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion are proving to be more impactful, according to Maurice Jones, president and CEO, OneTen.

WorkingNation sat down with Jones at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2022 in Beverly Hills.

The goal of OneTen is to provide career and economic advancement to one million Black Americans without four-year degrees over the next 10 years. The coalition includes 70 companies and over 100 talent developers.

Jones says the option of remote work is allowing companies to recruit Black talent outside of their geographic locations.

He says feedback from CEOs at the end of OneTen’s first year showed a keen interest beyond hiring. “We had a number of questions, but one was, ‘Where do you most need us to try to add value?’ The most common response was, ‘Retention and advancement.’ It wasn’t hiring.”

“There were more companies saying to us, ‘We need to build our muscles around retaining Black talent and advancing them’ than those who were saying, ‘We need more help with hiring them.’”

Jones continues, “It makes sense. We did a survey of the companies in April, May of last year. This was about 50 of the companies that we have in the coalition. We discovered that they had within their working walls, over 850,000 Black talent already working for them.”

Learn more about OneTen.