After nearly three decades, American Express’s commitment to diversity remains strong as the organization continues to strive to create an employee base as diverse as the customers and communities it serves. Leveraging employees’ unique insights and experiences helps American Express foster an environment where innovative and intelligent people want to build careers.

To capitalize on the diversity of talent within the company, American Express has focused on operating programs that advance female and multicultural talent, teach managers how to lead across generations, and raise the profile of employee-formed diversity networks. As American Express creates a larger global footprint in the digital and mobile economy, the company is developing diversity and inclusion practices to ensure it can quickly and authentically rally to meet evolving consumer needs in innovative ways.

Global Diversity

Many organizations struggle with how to address diversity in parts of the world where the dimensions of diversity are not as readily visible and are therefore difficult to identify and measure. In 2014, American Express will be analyzing the demographic trends, unique diversity and inclusion challenges, and emerging legislation around the world in order to develop the tailored strategies needed to recruit, develop, and engage a workforce that truly represents the global communities in which the company operates.

Inclusive Leadership

The concept of inclusive leadership is one that American Express has embraced. Inclusive leaders create a workplace culture where differences are valued and expressed freely, and employees have the support they need to take risks, learn, and collaborate to find the best solutions, which ultimately improves the bottom line. Next year, the company is taking diversity and inclusion to the next level by incorporating inclusive leadership into its talent processes and programs. This will help both managers and employees understand what it means to be a successful leader at American Express. Looking to the future, American Express is engaging in research focused on demonstrating a strong link between diversity and innovation in order to tap into the power of a diverse employee base and drive business results.