First, each element of this action plan has already been assigned to one or more senior leaders at HBS. They have been given responsibility to drive meaningful change and to develop timelines by which they must make progress.

Second, we will create a regularly updated public report as well as an internal dashboard to track performance and manage our work on advancing racial equity. To do so, we will first define the critical outcome metrics that matter to Black community members and develop instruments and processes to measure them. The report and dashboard might include, for example, information on the racial composition of our faculty, student bodies, and staff; the mix of protagonists in cases that are taught in various programs and in newly written cases; the findings of internal climate surveys; the portion of HBS purchases that come from Black-owned firms; and so on.

We aim to make meaningful progress on the reported measures. Meaningful progress means that we will look for a noticeable change in slope for our measures, so that over time we can observe the arc of the School bending clearly towards racial equity.

Third, we will create a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Board of Advisors, consisting of alumni and outside experts, that meets regularly to review HBS’s progress and make recommendations to the Dean, our new Chief DEI Officer, the Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community, and the leaders of the Racial Equity Initiative.

The Board of Advisors, working in partnership with the Chief DEI Officer, the Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community, the DEI office, and the Initiative, will help ensure that our separate actions—to attract talent, develop research, improve educational programs, and engage the business community—come together to form a coherent strategy. They will also help us balance the need for urgent action with the need for sustained long-run effort.

Even as we assemble outside advisors to monitor our progress, we will count on every member of the HBS community to hold each other accountable and, indeed, to contribute to advancing racial equity. Each individual must change, and collectively, we must change our culture. Racial inequity, at HBS and beyond, is a systemic and collective problem. It will require a systemic and collective remedy.

The mission of the Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. We usually think of our students as the would-be leaders whom HBS is educating. But the mission statement also applies to the stewards of the School itself: the leaders of HBS, like all other members of the HBS community, must be educated over time to make a difference in the world. This action plan embodies a difference we now commit ourselves to make in the world, toward racial equity.