General Motors announced that Admiral Michael Mullen (retired) will join the company’s board of directors starting Feb. 1. Mullen previously served as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 to 2011, during which he was principal military adviser to Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Last fall, Mullen was a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Mullen discussed with Fair360, formerly DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti his views on leadership, accountability and the need to improve diversity in the military so all people have the opportunity to excel. His passionate testimonies for civil rights and inclusion for gay and lesbian service members helped persuade Obama to lift the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
“Diversity has wonderful characteristics across a large number of fields, areas, people, whatever the case might be. I didn’t want there to be any confusion about what I was going to focus on as the Chief Naval Officer,” Mullen told Visconti. “From a leadership standpoint, I thought where the Navy needed to goand I was intending to take them therewas to focus heavily on African-Americans and women. I wanted to send a very clear signal about what we were going to focus on.”
