Biogen Employees Engage in a Week-Long Series of Open Dialogues to Enhance DE&I Understanding
Joining the other companies that are part of the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the workplace, Biogen held a Week of Understanding. Inspired by employees’ ideas and engagement, Biogen’s event included virtual conversations and opportunities to learn about DE&I within the company, the broader healthcare system and the wider world.
“Biogen has been unequivocal on where we stand in protecting the rights of all and ensuring a more inclusive workplace,” Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos said. “We recommit ourselves every day to caring deeply in order to create a healthier, more resilient and more equitable world.”
This series of open dialogues was part of the Day of Understanding, a larger movement from CEO Action to spur candid conversations and foster change amongst more than 13 million employees across America.
For the Week of Understanding, Biogen employees hosted 22 internal global events with nearly 2,500 total attendees. These events covered topics such as inclusive leadership, unconscious bias, and coping skills for the stress and trauma of racism. Events were hosted in multiple languages and geographies.
“This is only the start of the conversations for some,” said Ashley Anderson, who spearheaded Biogen’s Week of Understanding. “We urge you to continue the conversations after the Week of Understanding and continue on your personal journeys. In order for real change to take place in our world, we need to start with real conversations.”
The Week of Understanding is the next step in Biogen’s long-standing commitment to DE&I and dozens of internal listening sessions held in 2020 to share perspectives, stories, and experiences around racism, allyship, and the need for action and accountability.
The week coincided with the release of Biogen’s 2020 Year in Review, which contains data from a global pay equity analysis, new diversity targets, and the company’s progress on addressing the interrelated challenges of climate change, health and equity.
About Biogen
At Biogen, our mission is clear: we are pioneers in neuroscience. Biogen discovers, develops and delivers worldwide innovative therapies for people living with serious neurological and neurodegenerative diseases as well as related therapeutic adjacencies. One of the world’s first global biotechnology companies, Biogen was founded in 1978 by Charles Weissmann, Heinz Schaller, Kenneth Murray and Nobel Prize winners Walter Gilbert and Phillip Sharp. Today Biogen has the leading portfolio of medicines to treat multiple sclerosis, has introduced the first approved treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, commercializes biosimilars of advanced biologics and is focused on advancing research programs in multiple sclerosis and neuroimmunology, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, neuromuscular disorders, movement disorders, ophthalmology, immunology, neurocognitive disorders, acute neurology and pain.
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