I support hiring diverse candidates (and efforts to support the pipeline of diverse candidates by encouraging women and minorities to get into STEM).
There are all sorts of good reasons to have a corporation that reflects the diversity of the country (i.e. people designing, selling, marketing, products that reflect the customers of those products).
That said, the way that we've rolled out the Diversity Initiative at Intel has been ham-handed and misguided. In order to hire someone who ISN'T a woman or underserved minority, a hiring manager (like me) must first in-person interview at least one woman or underserved minority candidate, even if there aren't any with the requisite skills or experience...and then justify (in a Powerpoint memo) to (in my case) my VP and then Diane Bryant why I can't hire the woman or minority (and why the other candidate is superior). They can approve or not approve and it slows everything down, makes people like me cynical about the whole thing and it doesn't even include some really important groups (e.g. vets, people with disabilities, etc.).
Like the mass-layoffs, BK wants numbers on this program. And he'll get numbers (win the battle) while hurting the culture of the company (losing the war).
The stupid re-structuring is actually counter-productive to diversity goals. Getting rid of Intel sites in places where minorities live and consolidating in places like Portland and Silicon Valley just makes it hard to recruit and retain them.
If Intel wants to be the employer of choice for THE BEST women and underserved minorities, then we need to out-compete the Google's of the world for them. The live in Hillsboro and sit in a cube approach is going to ensure that's not the case.
As an aside, didn't the woman in charge of the Intel Capital Diversity Investment Program just leave?