William B. Lytton
General Counsel
International Paper makes inclusiveness a central principle of excellence and diversity results are tied to compensation throughout the entire company. Led by Senior Vice President and General Counsel William Lytton, the law department has been at the forefront of the company’s diversity efforts. The department’s involvement in diversity goes beyond compliance to the creation of an environment where every employee knows that he or she is valued as an individual and is treated with respect and dignity.
In 1999, the law department named diversity as one of its five key strategic initiatives for the coming year. To champion its diversity initiative, the department formed a diversity task team, and within 12 months it had implemented an original diversity program. One component of the program, the Lighthouse Award, recognizes the efforts of outside counsel in actively supporting the law department’s commitment to diversity. The diversity task team also created a minority internship program for the law department and secured a grant for the University of Memphis Law School’s Minority Student Mentoring Program.
The 2000-2001 diversity task team raised the bar even higher by adding two key performance measures to its goals: first, to increase the number of minorities and females in the department by 15 percent, and second, to conduct at least five outreach activities to promote the visibility, professionalism and commitment of IP’s legal team to the hiring of qualified female and minority candidates. Within the year, the department had increased the number of females and minority professionals by 30 percent and conducted twice as many outreach activities as originally targeted.
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From the March 2002 issue of Diversity & The Bar®