Clarence Otis Jr.

The 51-year-old CEO of Darden Restaurants traveled from the mean streets of Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood, where he grew up, to Wall Street and in time to his current job heading the company that owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and other chains. He's a champion of workplace diversity.

I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I was born in '56, and the riots were in '65. I can still see the National Guard, with bayonets at the end of their rifles. I remember when I was in high school being pulled over by the police, guns drawn, told to get on the ground. There were elements of a police state. But if you were bright, you had a lot of people heavily invested in making sure you had opportunity. My parents were very achievement-oriented and believed you could become whatever you wanted to be. I always believed major companies had significant leverage and that they could make profound differences. So if you had the ability to shape the direction of a major company, then you could make a social difference.

When I first interviewed [to become treasurer] at Darden (DRI), I felt, here's an organization that is pretty multidimensional compared to Wall Street. I liked the mass appeal of the brands, the fact that they really were pervasive. And you've got this broad employee base that was diverse in every respect, in an industry where folks can really go from entry level to the top. And it was an organization that was earnest. It had a humility that I was comfortable with.

We have a strong legacy at Darden of diversity, but we want to take diversity to another level. We're beefing up our employee support networks. We have diversity learning workshops for managers—three days for director-level managers, and two days for general managers. We want to extend the diversity learning experience to the rest of management. But I don't see this as philanthropic. You look at the demographic trends, and the winning companies will be those that embrace those trends. Our diversity initiatives will position us to win. We cannot achieve the sales growth we think we're capable of unless we become the place where the minority groups growing the fastest feel most comfortable dining, and these are groups that can be easily offended.