Adobe Blog | Listening, Learning and Taking Action

At Adobe, we believe that everyone deserves respect and equal treatment, and we stand together with the Black community against hate, intolerance and racism. The events over the last few weeks have been a stark reminder of the insensitivity and silence that have persisted for far too long in America. We mourn the loss of so many lives lost due to racial injustice.

The current situation is unacceptable. We all have a responsibility to drive change and ensure that our workplace and country is one where every individual feels a sense of belonging and inclusion. We must stand up and speak out against racial inequality and injustice.

We want to thank our Black colleagues who we have met with over the past weeks for their vulnerability, bravery and grace in sharing their stories with us. We learned about the persistent fear and anxiety they carry because of the color of their skin. We saw exhaustion from feeling that education about racism is solely the Black community’s responsibility. We heard loneliness and isolation from being the only Black person on a team or in a meeting. We heard loud and clear the need for greater representation and understood the work all of us must do to educate ourselves and support our Black colleagues. And we witnessed immense pride for Black culture, illuminating the opportunity we have to celebrate it as part of our shared Adobe culture.

We believe that the best way to drive change is to start with change at Adobe. We need to grow representation by building a stronger pipeline. We’ve seen how greater representation leads to a virtuous cycle of more role models, advancement and growth, a playbook that we can scale globally for all minority groups.

In collaboration with leaders of the Black Employee Network (BEN) and a team of our Black colleagues, we have identified five key levers for long-term impact:
Building Community at Adobe: Bolstering education for all employees to raise awareness of issues on race, inclusion and belonging and creating a platform for the Black experience to be heard. Growth and Advancement: Fostering greater opportunity, sponsorship, development and advancement.

Hiring and Recruiting: Increasing investment in developing a robust talent pipeline.
Social Responsibility and Advocacy: Identifying key issues where we will direct Adobe’s resources and energy toward advancing equality through our ecosystem.

Transparency Around Progress: Enabling more insight, data and accountability to ensure that we are making measurable progress.

Adobe will immediately contribute $1 million to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an organization that is dedicated to fighting systemic racism, and that we selected in collaboration with BEN. Adobe will match employee grants to EJI 2:1. Please consider giving to show your support.

Juneteenth is a day that commemorates the effective end of slavery in the United States. This year, on June 19th, we are giving all Adobe employees the day off to focus on reflection and advocacy.