Company Struggling To Find Diverse Leadership Candidates Among CEO’s Golf Buddies

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ST. LOUIS—Repeatedly thwarted in their efforts to bring some new perspectives to the C-suite, agrochemical company WFM Industries shared with reporters Wednesday that they were struggling to find diverse leadership candidates among the CEO’s golf buddies. “Increasing diversity at the executive level is a top priority for us, but we’ve really had difficulty recruiting any minority candidates from the guys our CEO plays 18 holes with every Sunday,” said WFM chief human resources officer Melinda Webber, who added that she was still adjusting to her role as the company’s first female C-suite member, hired after an extensive search of the CEO’s golf buddies’ wives. “We expanded our initial search to anyone our CEO has played golf with over the past five years, and then eventually to anyone with a country club membership, but we still can’t find that minority candidate who works for our business needs. If this keeps up we’re going to have to expand our search to the CFO’s yacht club pals.” At press time, the company had brought in a promising minority candidate who worked as a caddy at the CEO’s golf club but decided not to pursue the hire after finding out that he was just tan.