The only Black female CEO in the Fortune 1000 boosted her company's minority leadership by 50 in 4 years here's how she did it

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Lisa Wardell, the CEO of for-profit education company Adtalem, increased racial diversity in her eight-person senior leadership team by 50 over four years.

Wardell told Business Insider that mentoring underrepresented employees and placing women with no prior board experience in leadership positions helped diversify the company.

Wardell is also the only Black female CEO in the Fortune 1000. Just two Black women have ever been chief executives of Fortune 500 companies.

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Many chief executives are only now making commitments to add more underrepresented minorities to boards and senior leadership. Lisa Wardell, CEO of Adtalem, made it her mission when she joined in 2016, and she's made a difference.

There were no minorities in Adtalem leadership positions four years ago, and Wardell was able to increase leadership diversity by 50 , hiring three other racial minorities to executive and senior vice president positions.See the rest of the story at Business InsiderNOW WATCH: Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquidSee Also:The hiring policy at McKinsey, one of the world's most elite management consultancies, is defined by one thing: HarvardThe onetime HR chiefs of Google and Goldman Sachs are betting on surging demand for diversity-and-inclusion tech. Here's their plan for remaking the 148 billion market.The great a-woke-ning: Mark Zuckerberg's 8 billion dip in net worth from the Facebook ad boycott shows corporate America is finally listening to calls for racial justice

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