Celebrating Merck's Global Diversity & Inclusion Experience Month

In January 2015, Celeste Warren, vice president and chief diversity officer, suggested during a team meeting that we need to celebrate the diversity of our employees and provide them with time to pause, learn and reflect. Energized, the team realized that a day — or even a week — would not be impactful enough. Celeste took in the perspectives of the team and said, “Let’s take the month,” and Global Diversity & Inclusion (GD&I) Experience Month was born.

Five Years and Counting
September 2020 marks our fifth GD&I Experience Month, and we are proud to dedicate a full month to fostering meaningful discussions and learning around diversity and inclusion while pausing to reflect and celebrate all the wonderful D&I-focused work being done throughout the year.

Look how much we’ve grown and experienced since our first GD&I Experience Month

• In 2019, employees in 68 countries tuned in to our kick-off event, which included 25 global watch parties
• We’ve seen a 40% increase in membership in our 10 Employee Business Resource Groups (EBRGs), with new chapters being added across the globe
• We introduced a new process to monitor the company’s progress in creating a diverse and inclusive work environment
• We developed an integrated disability inclusion strategy to ensure that persons with disabilities within the organization would be able to be productive and contribute to our mission of saving and improving lives

Learn more about Merck’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Experience Month here.