Diversity, equity, and inclusion

A message from our Global Head of DEI

At PATH, 2023 was a year of curiosity and open conversation, of forming new communities and broadening perspectives. It was also a year of measurable progress. When I first joined PATH’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) journey in 2021, the organization was already one year into its data-driven approach. By the end of 2023, the data began showing real and substantive progress:

For the first time since 2020, we achieved gender parity across all levels of the organization.
Since 2020, we have seen the number of Black staff in the United States increase by 25.6 percent, demonstrating our steadfast commitment to racial equity.
Since 2021, we’ve seen movement at the executive level: a 12.5 percent increase in the number of woman leaders, as well as a 12.5 percent increase in regional representation as more leadership roles move outside of the United States.
From 2021 to 2023, we saw a 75 percent increase in the number of women in PATH groups.

These numbers are important because they are evidence that our DEI initiatives—such as the ELEVATE talent development and leadership acceleration program for Asian, Black, and Hispanic/Latinx staff—are really working. Though the data are impressive, the lived experience behind these numbers is what matters most.

It matters most that more women at PATH now have communities to support one another and advocate for advancement; that genders (and the different perspectives they bring) are equally represented in our staff and leadership; that more leaders and executives are from and live in the places where PATH works.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign of PATH’s increasing localization: in 2023, our Global Leaders Meeting was held in Africa for the first time and the most discussed topic was how to collaborate better as a global team working across time zones, cultures, and languages.

These lived experiences reflect a growing culture of intentional inclusion that extends into every aspect of our organization—even hiring practices and project planning.

For example, in 2023, our Human Resources department took an important step to remove a barrier to pay equity: PATH no longer asks future hires about their previous salaries. This means that the new, international approach to job grading PATH recently implemented can serve as a corrective, ensuring people are paid equitably for the job being performed.

In our project planning, PATH’s groundbreaking Equity in Programming Benchmarks are leading to real change. A recent survey of teams that have used the benchmarks revealed more than 50 percent of projects implemented changes designed to center equity in their work after using the tool.

When intentional inclusion is applied across our people, our business practices, projects, and programs, it enables us to better understand each other as colleagues and better meet the needs of the communities we serve—which, ultimately, leads to more impactful health care innovations and better outcomes.

My heartfelt thanks to all my PATH colleagues for creating a workplace where people truly belong, and every perspective is valued. The future looks ever brighter; let’s continue this journey together.

Best,

Levis Nderitu
Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Levis Nderitu, Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

DEI by the numbers

As part of our three-year DEI strategy, PATH developed DEI dashboards to monitor institutional progress on employee retention across gender, race, and other factors. The graphs on this page show self-reported employee data from some of the dashboards.