Diversity Equity and Inclusion Lighthouses 2025

Appendix The DEI Lighthouse Programme The Centre for the New Economy and Society (CNES) created the DEI Lighthouse Programme to identify and showcase proven methodologies and practical insights from peer organizations that can help others accelerate their DEI efforts. Lighthouses come from around the world, across industries and span a wide range of diversity, equity and/or inclusion goals. The focus of Lighthouse cases spans employees, suppliers, customers and/ or the broader community, and can address any underrepresented group (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQI+, people with disabilities or intersectional identities). Submission and selection process To become a Lighthouse, companies progress through three stages: 1. Written submission: organizations submit a written description of their initiative, sharing information on their overall DEI context and initiative-specific actions, impact and findings. 2. Follow-up call: organizations whose submissions fulfil the minimum requirements join a call with the Forum’s DEI team for a consultation on their case. As minimum requirements, the World Economic Forum asks submissions to be complete and address the four dimensions of impact laid out in the selection criteria. 3. Expert panel selection: the Forum DEI team synthesizes and anonymizes all cases, which are reviewed by an independent expert panel. Each panellist individually scores submissions against criteria in a pre-established evaluation rubric and then jointly determines which cases become a Lighthouse. Independent expert panel The independent panel of DEI experts was appointed by CNES. The five DEI experts were unaffiliated with participating organizations and brought a diverse range of expertise and perspectives. The members of the 2025 DEI Lighthouse Programme panel were as follows: –Caroline Casey is the co-founder, creator and activist behind the Valuable 500, the world’s largest CEO collective and business movement for disability inclusion. As well as her title of President of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, Caroline also sits on several diversity and inclusion boards and is a highly requested speaker around the world.   –Liz Broderick is a former independent expert at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN special rapporteur) focused on issues related to discrimination against women and girls. She is the founder and principal of an Australia-based specialist consultancy that works to improve gender equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as cultural renewal.  Elizabeth is also founder of the Champions of Change Coalition, a not-for- profit enterprise working with 270 CEOs and their organizations to embed everyday respect and inclusion.  –Porter Braswell is the Founder and CEO of 2045 Studio, an inclusive leadership development company. Additionally, he is a Managing Director at True Search, a global executive search firm.  –Dominic Arnall is the Chief Executive Officer of Open for Business, a coalition of leading global companies dedicated to LGBTQI+ inclusion. With extensive experience in the civil society sector, he was previously CEO of Just Like Us, a LGBTQI+ charity for young people and also Chair for Mind Out, an LGBTQI+ mental health organization –Luana Génot is an award-winning leader and social entrepreneur passionate about inclusion. She is a board member, writer and the CEO of Identities Institute of Brazil, an organization working throughout Brazil and Latin America to support companies, government agencies and third-sector organizations with anti-racist education, affirmative action and AI for diversity, equity and inclusion. Initiative evaluation rubric The initiative evaluation rubric included four equally weighted criteria and guiding scores. Each criterion was individually scored on a scale of zero to three. All Lighthouses had to have at least two scores of three, no scores of zero and no more than one score of one. The four criteria were: 1. Significance: magnitude of impact, including: change against a baseline; number of people affected relative to the size of the target population and/or the organization’s size; and degree of transformative impact on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lighthouses 2025 39