Mercado Livre, one of the leaders in technology for e-commerce and financial services in Latin America, began to engage in actions to promote diversity within the company in recent years. Since January, the company has hired 700 black employees, with the goal of reaching at least 2,500 admissions by the end of the year. Now, the company announces a novelty: as of this week, it joins the Business Initiative for Racial Equality.
The platform works from the articulation between more than 70 companies committed to equal opportunities and fair treatment for all people, rejecting practices of racial discrimination that may affect the development of professionals, businesses and society. “The Free Market has always sought plurality in line with its DNA. Now, with the expansion of the team in Brazil, we will not miss the opportunity to bring even more diversity into the company, thus boosting our vocation for innovation and technology”, says Fernando Yunes, senior vice president and leader of Mercado Livre in the Brazil.
The novelty comes to complement actions such as IT Bootcamp, focused on attracting young black people through the quota system, and First Mile, a career program that aims to hire and train black and brown people at the level of analysts in team leadership, initiatives taken by the company in recent years. The result of the series of actions, so far, can be seen in the company’s internal data. 39% of Mercado Livre employees in Brazil are self-declared black or brown – 10% of them occupy positions above management.
There is still a long way to go, but Patrícia Monteiro, the company’s people director, sees the progress with pride. She pointed out that everything becomes even more symbolic because it was formalized last Tuesday (25), the day on which George Floyd’s brutal death completed a year.
Among the commitments assumed in the Business Initiative are: involvement in the respect and promotion of equality, fair treatment for all people, a respectful environment and respect for racial diversity in communication and marketing. “For us, the signing of the ten commitments is a significant milestone in our journey towards racial equity. In 2020, we felt the effect of the ‘Black Lives Matters’ activist movement here in Brazil and the need to speak and act with even more commitment to the cause and accelerate our racial equality agenda in the country”, says Patrícia.
Although the focus on racial equality is very strong, the company says to accelerate the diversity journey based on four pillars: women, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities and ethnicities. To this end, it has been working with external and internal initiatives to promote diverse teams that increasingly represent the population of Latin America – and, of course, the Brazilian population.
By Forbes. Posted on 27/05/2021
