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irst Horizon National Corporation manages diversity and inclusion like all core business strategies—with reporting that drives decisions to obtain improved results. Leveraging both data and direct customer feedback, the company determined a key priority was to increase the diversity of talent in both leadership pipelines and in customer-facing sales positions. Senior leaders receive colorcoded diversity staffing maps and talent-pipeline reports to help them understand team diversity by
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First Horizon National Corporation Innovation: Strategic Hiring Initiative Introduced: 2016 Program Leaders: David Popwell, President and COO; Lynne Walker, Executive Vice President and Director of Affinity Strategy
race/ethnicity, gender, generation, position, salary grade, and hiring trends. The maps provide data and insights to identify diversity gaps and help prioritize staffing decisions to improve workforce diversity. In the fall of 2016, to accelerate diversity in customer-facing positions for business, commercial, and corporate banking, as well as private client/wealth and retail leadership, First Horizon implemented a strategic hiring initiative. Led by David Popwell, our president and COO, and Lynne Walker, executive vice president
and director of affinity strategy, this recruiting initiative initially funded ten full-time, customerfacing positions for the purpose of hiring diverse talent. These hires are typically from nontraditional backgrounds, yet have transferrable skills. They are assigned mentors and receive a customized training plan to ensure success. In addition to improving team performance through diversity, First Horizon also gains the benefit of more closely mirroring our customer base. Since the program’s inception, seven positions have been filled, two