Live Nation makes $10m diversity pledge

Live Nation makes $10m diversity pledge

Live Nation has pledged to invest $10 million (£7.8m) over the next two years to focus on "developing, promoting and hiring black and under-represented talent". 

The commitment was made in an open letter by the company's president and CEO Michael Rapino, which sets out its plans to build its diversity by 2025.

Its targets also include achieving 30% diverse representation on its board of directors, increase the diversity of its festival line-ups and developing more tours from black, latin and other under-served groups. 

As the leader in live music, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to amplify the conversation around anti-racism and Black Lives Matter in order to be a part of the solution

Michael Rapino, Live Nation

"At Live Nation, our mission has always been about bringing people together to share experiences and to unify them through the universal language of music," said Rapino. "Recent events in the US and around the world have sparked overdue reflection on racism and discrimination in our societies, as well as here at Live Nation. 

"As the leader in live music, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to amplify the conversation around anti-racism and Black Lives Matter in order to be a part of the solution. We also recognise the need to expand our efforts across race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and other underrepresented groups."

He continued: "We commit to increasing diversity at every level of our company. This will start at the very top with our Board of Directors, where we plan to nominate more Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) and women candidates as we strive towards having at least 30% of our directors be diverse by 2025.

"When it comes to our leadership representation (Director and above), we are setting representation goals on a country-by-country basis in order to acknowledge local dynamics and best serve each region.

"In the United States, we plan to have doubled our Black leadership representation, and to have increased our overall racially/ethnically diverse leadership representation to 30% by 2025. We’ll be investing at least $10 million globally over the next two years as we expand and launch new programs focused on developing, promoting and hiring Black and underrepresented talent as we work to bring our overall employee population to parity across race and gender in every country. This will include expanding Future Nation, formalising mentorship programs, building career training and coaching opportunities, growing scholarship offerings, developing pipelines for more diverse hiring, and other efforts."

The letter can be read in full here

In Live Nation's most recent earnings report, Rapino outlined the company's battle plan to bounce back from the coronavirus crisis - with hopes for the "full scale" return of concerts in 2021. 



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