First Place Winner; 2024 DEI Global Case Writing Competition
TriBrown Services is a fictional leading industrial technology company headquartered in the United States, with operations in 70-plus countries; its non-U.S. workforce and revenues exceed those of the U.S. After serving as an affiliate of larger companies for almost four decades, TriBrown established itself as an independent entity in 2017 and embarked on a major strategic restructuring. This included development of a people strategy that was inseparable from TriBrown’s DEI goals, a primary one being increased representation of women in all echelons of the organization.
Maya Marshall (fictional protagonist) is hired as Vice President of DEI in 2018. One key focus for her is to integrate the DEI initiatives with the organizational culture and build the internal talent pipeline for women to rise to leadership positions. A primary pain point that Marshall sets out to address is attrition among women team members due to child-bearing and caregiving roles in families.
She engages in a research and data-based exercise of finding a way to cushion such career breaks and enhance retention for women across TriBrown’s global offices. She comes up with a plan for a company-wide paid parental leave (PPL) policy. She encounters unexpected challenges along the way, including reservations from some who are intended beneficiaries of the policy.