Intel has put its money where its mouth is on diversifying its workforce — and the company has paid for it in other ways.
The Santa Clara chip maker’s board in 2016 “determined to enhance the personal security for [its] CEO and certain other listed officers in response to specific Intel-related incidents and threats against those officers and, in some cases, members of their families,” according to its proxy statement released Thursday.
Last year, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said he and his leadership team had received threats “around our position on diversity and inclusion.” The position that prompted threats? In 2015, Intel committed $300 million to building a more diverse workforce within the next five years.
At the time, Krzanich said the company would use the money not only to hire more women and minorities at Intel but to encourage more women and minorities to enter the tech industry.
“People worry that as a white man, you’re kind of under siege to a certain extent,” Krzanich said last April on stage with the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the PUSHTech 2020 conference in San Francisco. “There’s been a bit of resistance … We stand up there and just remind everybody it’s not an exclusive process. We’re not bringing in women or African-Americans or Hispanics in exclusion to other people. We’re actually just trying to bring them in and be a part of the whole environment.”
Because of the threats, Intel spent more than $2 million on Krzanich’s security in 2016, according to the proxy. That’s up from less than $40,000 the company spent on his security the previous year, Bloomberg points out. The 2016 costs included $1.86 million for personal security for the chief executive plus $275,200 for security for his residence.
“Intel believes these are appropriate expenses for the benefit of the company that arise out of our executives’ employment responsibilities and that are necessary to their job performance,” an Intel spokeswoman told SiliconBeat in response to an emailed request for comment Thursday. “We’re not commenting or elaborating beyond what is in the Proxy.”
Other executives for whom the company listed security costs were Venkata Renduchintala, who is president of Intel’s Internet of Things business. His security services cost $944,800. Security costs for Stacy Smith, the executive vice president who oversees manufacturing, operations and sales, totaled $309,900.
After all the costs, how did Intel do in its goal to diversify its workforce? According to its 2016 diversity report, it has achieved pay parity for women and minorities. Last year, its share of female employees climbed to 25.8 percent, up 2.3 percentage points from 2014. It also said its “diverse hiring” reached 45.1 percent.
