Cisco Investments launched a Diversity and Inclusion survey, starting in 2021, with the following goals:
Create a baseline for diversity among our portfolio companies
Build awareness
Observe the trends over time
For us at Cisco Investments, we are committed to fulfilling the promise of powering an inclusive future. Cisco Investments' reporting is in accordance with the definition of diversity outlined by Cisco's Purpose Report, where “diversity” is the percentage of Under-Represented Minorities (URM – African American/Black, Pacific Islander, Alaskan Native, Indigenous Americans, LatinX), persons of two or more ethnicities, and females that make up the leadership team.
For this survey, we ask our portfolio companies about the composition of each company’s senior leadership (founders and executives), as a proxy for the company. Executives are defined as people with roles from Vice President to CxO. For our US portfolio companies, we also request a breakdown of ethnicity and gender, as well as whether each company has a formalized Head of Diversity role. For non-US portfolio companies, only a gender breakdown and Head of Diversity information are requested.