Inclusion & Opportunity

Aramark (NYSE: ARMK), the $15 billion global provider of award winning services in food, facilities management, and uniforms, was once again named one of the Top 40 Best Companies for Diversity by BLACK ENTERPRISE.

Innovation. It’s one of those buzzy business words you hear in commercials for cars or even vacuum cleaners or perhaps read in full-page ads printed in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. But what does it really mean to innovate in 2015?

Presidential politics took an odd turn a few weeks ago when one candidate summarized the prospects for Ms. Fiorina's presidential ambitions in four words: "Look at that face." My immediate reaction couldn't for the most part be printed in these pages, but the comment stuck with me. The equally ugly comments last week against ESPN’s Jessica Mendoza, who had the audacity to call a major league baseball game, prompted me to consider both attacks, in all their blunt honesty, at greater length.

One third of the world’s 1.8 billion young people are currently neither in employment, education or training. Of the one billion more youth that will enter the job market in the next decade, only 40 percent are expected to be able to get jobs that currently exist. The global economy will need to create 600 million jobs over the next 10 years – five million jobs each month -- simply to keep pace with projected youth employment rates.

General wisdom - and the occasional ‘feel good’ stories covered by local news channels about corporations that went above and beyond to serve their local communities - tell us that a company garners a lot of goodwill when it champions local causes, fair business practices and responsible environmental stewardship… and now, a 2015 Community Involvement survey by Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship shows that corporate philanthropy programs that include local community oriented development projects provide a huge boost to a corporation’s business goals.