Coca-Cola has created a panel to help the company increase the number of contracts it places with ethnic minority and women-owned businesses.
The Procurement Advisory Council is part of a $1billion (£694million) diversity initiative announced last year, when the company faced a race-discrimination lawsuit involving 2,000 former and current Black employees who alleged they were paid less for equal work and were denied promotions. The case was settled earlier this year (EP8, 2001).
The council includes two Coca-Cola vice presidents, plus independent members such as the former US labor secretary Lynn Martin, the president of the National Minority Supplier Development Council Harriet Michel and the national chairman of 100 Black Men of America, Thomas Dortch.
Coca-Cola has also said it will set up a separate task force to monitor employment practices over a four-year period.
That task force will be chaired by Alexis Herman, who was US labor secretary under president Bill Clinton. The council will meet three times a year.