Alexis Herman, former court-appointed monitor of Coca-Cola, joins its board

By Duane D. Stanford
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(October 18, 2007) Coca-Cola's newest board member, former U.S. Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman, said Thursday she will help "shepherd the issue of fairness" at the world's largest soft drink maker.

But Herman, who spent six years leading a task force that monitored Coke's compliance with a racial discrimination settlement, also made it clear profit and loss are just as important to her.

"I hope that I'll be able first to bring value to the Coca-Cola Co.," she said on her way to New Orleans, where she co-chairs the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.

Coke's directors appointed Herman, 60, as the board's 12th member Thursday at the company's Atlanta headquarters, with her in attendance.

Herman said Coke Chairman and Chief Executive Neville Isdell first called this summer to discuss a board seat.

The directors also named Herman to the board's public issues and diversity review committee, to which Herman said she brings years of public policy experience and a global perspective.

Herman becomes one of two African-American members of Coke's board, joining Georgetown University professor of diplomacy Donald McHenry.

As secretary from 1997 to 2001, Herman was the first African-American to lead the Labor Department.

Herman is chairman and chief executive of New Ventures, a corporate consulting firm. She also chairs the diversity advisory board at Toyota USA and serves on the boards of several companies, including MGM Mirage.

Herman said she worked closely with Coke from 2001 to 2006 during her time as chairwoman of an independent task force appointed by a federal judge to monitor Coke's diversity programs. Coke agreed to the monitoring as part of a $192.5 million settlement of a racial discrimination lawsuit filed in 1999.

Coke has said executives met with the company-funded committee every four to eight weeks and discussed issues regularly by phone.

The task force concluded its work in December and released a final report to the court. Herman at the time praised Coke for making diversity part of its business plan and part of its training for middle managers, "who have to be the translators for the future." Herman said the success of Coke's diversity programs will depend on the company's "willingness to question itself, its willingness to hold that mirror up."

Herman now will be a part of that process as a Coke director, where she said she hopes to help "build the best work force in the world today."


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