Corporate Diversity Leadership
General Mills Diversity Scholarship, General Mills, Inc.
Denise Holloman, Director of Manufacturing Engineering
General Mills, Inc.
Thousands of people were suffering from disease, hunger and malnutrition in Zambia and Malawi — two of the poorest countries in Africa — because of a lack of agricultural technology, funding and access to clean water. It is the kind of expertise that General Mills, Inc., the giant food company, has plenty of.
“We don’t market any products in those two countries. But in this case, two employees in our technical group had ties to those countries and saw a need,” says General Mills Vice President Stephanie Lilak.
So the company’s domestic “Nourishing Lives” program was expanded across the ocean, and the knowledge and time of General Mills’ scientists, engineers, agronomists, nutritionists and foundation executives went to work. They developed “sustainable agricultural” projects and taught the farming and food processing techniques through the newly created African Women and Children’s Hunger Project. To help villagers develop fiscal independence, the food giant developed a savings and loan program to finance microlending among 2,800 women. While the parents are working the fields, some 4,400 children in the participating villages are fed daily in the local schools.
“We support humanitarian and research-oriented projects,” says Lilak, “and it is meant to facilitate humanitarian needs. All of our employees are invited to be involved in this project, and those who (do) get sent there at company expense. More than 100 of our employees have worked on these projects.”
The African projects are just another facet of General Mills’ commitment to diversity.
“We think it makes us a better employer,” says Lilak. “We are a better corporate citizen when we have representation in our work force that represents the world.”
Roger Witherspoon is a journalist and author based in New York.