Electrolux Lawyer Says Diversity Push Cost Him Top Job

Article here. Excerpt:

'An in-house lawyer with Electrolux NA Inc. was denied promotion from interim general counsel to the permanent post because he is a man and the company and its Swedish parent were in the midst of a diversity-fueled push to elevate women into leadership roles, he alleged Wednesday in a federal lawsuit.

“Electrolux AB publicly expressed its discriminatory preference for female leadership/managerial candidates by establishing targets and quotas to substantially increase the percentage of women in leadership/managerial positions by the end of 2020,” Sal Kafiti says.

The company expressed that preference for “sex/gender as a distinguishing and beneficial characteristic” in a 2019 sustainability report, according to the complaint Kafiti filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

AB Electrolux pursued a quota of women holding at least 35% of its tier 2 and 3 leadership positions by the start of 2021 even though the report recognized that was “a stretch,” Kafiti says. The goal was also adopted by and made applicable to Electrolux NA, he says.'