As Penguin Random House, we hold a collective belief that diverse voices need to be elevated and heard. Externally, we are committed to using our platform to amplify an even broader range of voices. Internally, we are working to build an equitable, inclusive, and psychologically safe work environment for all employees.

We are guided by five core pillars that shape our DE&I efforts across the business.

Leadership Investment in DE&I: Effective leadership is at the core of systemic change and we are investing in that change through unconscious bias, antiracism, and inclusivity training. We hold leaders accountable for implementing our s DE&I vision, setting goals, achieving results, and being role models.

Diversity & Representation: We are committed to making our employee population more representative of our society by ensuring that attraction, sourcing, and recruitment is done through a DE&I lens.

Career Growth: Diversity, equity and inclusion is crucial to the development of all employees to ensure they are prepared, supported, and well-situated in how to advocate for their career paths. We integrate DE&I into talent development, performance management, advancement, and retention efforts.

Psychological Safety and Belonging: We seek to create a more psychologically safe, inclusive environment that allows employees to bring their full selves to work and voice their ideas and opinions openly.

Content & Marketplace: We are committed to increasing the number of books we publish, promote, and sell by people of color with the ultimate goal of publishing books that reflect the world we live in.

While these pillars have advanced our progress in establishing more inclusive business practices, there is still much more important work to do. Together with our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Councils, Employee Resource Groups, and leadership teams, we will continue our ongoing and evolving plan for action to achieve our aspiration of creating a more equitable company and publishing community.

Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe was the main sponsor of the first reception of the Queer Media Society at the 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair. 

Rebecca Prager, Head of Corporate Communications at Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe, spoke at the reception on behalf of Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe and be.queer, the network for LGBTIQ employees and allies at Bertelsmann, emphasizing the importance of the network for togetherness and mutual support as well as for visibility and awareness in the workplace.

Surpassing our 2023 total, Penguin Random House raised $2,777 for Share Lunch Fight Hunger in 2024, enough to help feed over 6,450 kids in NYC for one day. In a time of great need, with 1 in 4 children facing food insecurity, City Harvest raised enough through this year’s campaign to feed more than 11,000 NYC kids and their families for the entire summer. Learn more about Share Lunch Fight Hunger here. 

Dinner on the House is an annual employee volunteer experience designed to serve those who may need a helping hand during the holiday season. For the past twelve years, Penguin Random House volunteers have joined City Harvest at their Food Rescue Center to help repack food items into family-sized portions for distribution to New Yorkers in need. 

In May, Penguin Random House donated over 150 LGBTQ+ books across eleven divisions for a student-led Pride event at the New College of Florida. The school has been in the news recently as a site where partisan politics and educational freedom are clashing in a way that’s not unrelated to the wave of book banning we’ve been seeing throughout the nation. As a result of the recent appointments by Gov. DeSantis to the New College Board of Trustees in support of his views, students have been restricted in the kinds of activities they can do with school funds—including DEI and LGBTQ events like Pride.

At Penguin Random House, we work to incorporate DEI into the DNA of every aspect of our company culture. Our DEI Values guide us as we continue our efforts to build a more inclusive and equitable culture for our employees, creators and partners. In this report, we reflect on our work throughout the past two years, while also looking ahead to all that’s yet to come.

In Canada, we committed to a multi-year sponsorship of Simon Fraser University’s Greg Younging Scholarship for an Indigenous student in the Masters of Publishing program at SFU. The scholarship aims to help eliminate the barriers Indigenous people face to entering and flourishing in the Canadian publishing industry, work that is fundamental to our commitment to building racial equity. 

In the U.S., we launched our first ever companywide DE&I training effort, Moving Toward Equity, in June 2022 in partnership with consulting and professional development firm True North EDI. The training is focused on incorporating equity, or the promotion of impartiality and fairness within PRH’s policies and procedures. Through the program, we aim to tackle inequity of all kinds through a structural lens as we continue our work to create a truly equitable workplace.

In December 2021 we launched the Next Editors Programme in the U.K., a new 18 month-long positive action traineeship that offers talent from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds the opportunity to develop key skills and expertise required for a role as a Commissioning Editor at a book publisher. We offered four traineeships, each of which takes place in one of four editorial teams within our publishing houses. Applicants needed three years’ work experience from any industry or role to apply. Our trainees are now in place and are following a bespoke training and development plan that includes workshops, mentoring, and on-the-job learning.