CEO: Michael Long
Headquarters: Centennial, Colorado
Website: www.arrow.com

Cultivating Pipeline of Young Talent

At Arrow Electronics people are the key to its long-term success, helping to fulfill the technology company’s mission to guide innovation forward. With 18,500 employees around the world, the Fortune 150 company’s workforce reflects the diversity of its customer and supplier base.

Arrow recognizes that diverse teams foster innovative thinking that help differentiate the company from its competition. The company has a variety of diversity initiatives in place, and is cultivating a pipeline of diverse young talent interested in careers at the company. The Arrow Diversity Day initiative introduces ethnic minority, first-generation, LGBTQ, veteran and disabled undergraduate and graduate business and engineering students to the wealth of career opportunities available at the company.

Through the initiative, Arrow is building supportive relationships with students early on demonstrating how people with backgrounds similar to theirs are thriving in Arrow careers. The goal is funneling interested students into its immersive summer internship program, which successfully transitions eligible interns into full-time Arrow employees. As part of its Diversity Day initiatives, top Arrow executives meet with students and university leaders sparking dialogue on how to better engage students and provides hands-on “career envisioning” for younger students planning beyond their next few years of school.

The Arrow Diversity Day initiative has resulted in a number of exceptional hires, it has also helped to enrich and diversify Arrow’s annual summer intern cohort. Diversity Day has also helped facilitate joint diversity and inclusion events between Colorado universities. Senior Arrow HR leaders are currently exploring how to expand the successful initiative to additional Arrow locations around the world.