For much of the past decade, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) seemed to be the hottest acronym in the corporate playbook.
From Silicon Valley giants to luxury fashion houses, firms scrambled to prove their credentials with splashy campaigns, thought-leader hires, and ambitious promises to reshape their workforces.
But the tide may now be turning.
The latest sign comes from one of Britain’s most iconic luxury brands: Burberry. According to the Telegraph, the retailer has made Geoffrey Williams (its global vice president of colleague attraction and inclusion) redundant, scrapping his role altogether. The decision is part of a sweeping cost-cutting drive designed to save at least £60 million by 2027, with up to 1,700 jobs on the chopping block.
Williams, who described himself as a “key thought leader,” was brought in to champion DEI within the business. His exit and the removal of his position entirely marks a symbolic, and perhaps telling, shift. Burberry, after all, had been at the forefront of the corporate diversity push, rolling out unconscious bias training and convening advisory boards to guide cultural change. But now, with sales plunging and losses mounting, the luxury giant appears to be rethinking where value really lies.
Burberry is not alone. Jaguar Land Rover, Britain’s largest carmaker, faced widespread backlash earlier this year after its tone-deaf “woke” campaign alienated more consumers than it won over. And it’s not just a British issue. Across the Atlantic, the retreat from DEI is moving even faster: Donald Trump’s ban on DEI programmes in federal agencies, coupled with warnings from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that some policies may be unlawful, has already pushed companies like Meta, Amazon, and Walmart to scale back.
The most infamous example, however, came from Bud Light. Its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney was intended as a nod to inclusivity, but instead became one of the biggest marketing fiascos in recent memory. The campaign sparked a nationwide boycott, sending sales tumbling by more than 20% and wiping billions off parent company AB InBev’s market value almost overnight. What was meant to earn plaudits ended up as a textbook case of how quickly a brand can lose touch with its core audience.
American superstore Target has also been stung in recent years. Its DEI-heavy Pride merchandise strategy led to backlash on both sides of the cultural divide: conservatives accused the store of “going woke,” while progressives attacked it for later pulling products from shelves under pressure. Sales fell, shares wobbled, and the State of Florida went so far as to sue the company, alleging that management had misled investors about the risks associated with its DEI commitments.
Even firms like Lululemon have faced shareholder lawsuits claiming that DEI promises were more about posturing than results, raising questions about whether such initiatives truly add measurable business value.
The simple truth is this: go woke, risk going broke. For years, companies treated DEI as a kind of moral insurance policy, assuming the cost of consultants, training, and flashy campaigns would be offset by reputational gain. But the commercial payoff has always been hazy, and in today’s harsher economic climate, the margin for error has disappeared.
Of course it’s not to say businesses should abandon inclusivity altogether. An open and meritocratic culture is unquestionably good for innovation and morale. But DEI, as it has been practiced in the corporate world, has too often meant bureaucratic box-ticking, virtue-signalling campaigns, and roles created to satisfy trends rather than deliver measurable value. As a former Jaguar customer said to me recently:
“I don’t care who you hire or what causes you back, just don’t shove it down our throats. I’ve been driving Jaguars for 35 years, and between my wife and me we’ve bought more than twenty of them. This year we were both ready to upgrade, but after that ridiculous advert, we walked away. Jaguar lost our business. We ended up buying a Bentley.”
The lesson from Burberry, Bud Light, Target, and Jaguar is brutally simple: customers aren’t buying woke ideology. They’re buying clothes, cars, beer, and everyday goods. Shareholders aren’t paying for corporate lectures… they want profits.
As companies slash costs and fight for survival, DEI is being unmasked for what it has become in too many boardrooms: a costly indulgence, a vanity project, and in some cases, a direct liability.
This isn’t just a course correction. It’s a reckoning. Maybe the age of performative inclusivity is ending… not with a whisper, but with a very expensive bang.
By Jack Lions.
