Levi Strauss & Co. has named Elizabeth A. Morrison as the new Chief Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Officer, following an extensive search for the right candidate to champion our efforts to create a more diverse and equitable company and culture.
With more than 20 years of experience creating work cultures that value diverse perspectives and empower employees to be their authentic selves, Elizabeth will be responsible for ensuring that the company has the right practices in place to attract and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the communities where we live and work.
“I’m so excited to welcome Elizabeth as our new head of DI&B,” said CEO Chip Bergh. “Diverse organizations, where everyone regardless of background can grow, thrive and bring their full selves to work, consistently outperform homogenous ones. I can’t wait to get to work with her. I know she will be an invaluable partner as we work to build a better, more inclusive future.”
In June — spurred by the calls for racial justice that swept across the country in the wake of the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others — we made a series of critical commitments to increase diversity. Since then, we have fulfilled our promise to be more transparent by releasing our employee demographic data and broadly acknowledging that, as Chip said then, “We are not where we need to be.”
“Elizabeth’s hire represents another important step forward in our journey to building a more inclusive workplace — but it is nowhere near the end,” said Chief Human Resources Officer Tracy Layney. “We need to build a truly comprehensive, holistic and global diversity, inclusion and belonging strategy. I believe that Elizabeth is exactly the right person to help lead this work. I also want to emphasize that it remains the work of all of us to continue holding ourselves accountable every single day for challenging biases, welcoming new ideas and lifting up new voices.”
Elizabeth has spent the last three years as Vice President Diversity & Belonging at Live Nation Entertainment, where her strategic focus on communications and analytics helped drive a highly creative approach to establishing diversity and belonging as a core culture driver.
Prior to that, she led Global Diversity and Inclusion for Campbell Soup Company, and spent eight years at Comcast driving employee engagement and culture.
“I’m thrilled to join one of the world’s most iconic brands and an organization with a proud history of advocating for equality,” said Elizabeth. “This is an unprecedented time of awakening and accountability for diversity, inclusion, belonging and racial justice, and I’m excited to build on LS&Co.’s core values to drive systemic and sustainable change for our employees, consumers and communities.”
We are thrilled to welcome Elizabeth as she joins us in the important work of hiring, supporting, promoting and elevating diversity at LS&Co. — and building an inclusive workplace where vibrant and respectful discourse thrives, and every employee knows that they can bring their true and authentic self to work every day.
