NEW YORK – On April 28, Pfizer Inc. announced the initiation of its Breakthrough Fellowship Program, a nine-year commitment to increase minority representation at Pfizer by advancing undergraduate students and fellows of Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic and Native American descent.
Pfizer said the BFP would recruit on an annual basis with a target of engaging 100 fellows by 2025. The company added that fellows selected into the BFP will join Pfizer for a 10-week undergraduate summer internship, followed by two years of full-time employment after graduation, as well as a fully funded scholarship to complete a master’s degree in business administration or master’s degree in public health and a summer internship during their graduate study. Recruitment for the BFP has started for 2021 fellows and would continue identification of students for the summer program in 2022, Pfizer said.
“The Breakthrough Fellowship Program builds on our 2025 opportunity parity goals, launched in 2019, and takes them a step further to focus on not only increasing diversity across our leadership, but also creating a pipeline of diverse talent throughout the organization,” Pfizer Chairmand and CEO Albert Bourla said. “As students receive mentoring and professional development, they also will have the opportunity to grow within the organization, which will lead to parity at all levels to create a vibrant culture where every colleague has the opportunity to succeed.”
In 2020, Pfizer updated its opportunity parity Goals to expand its commitment to equity and focus on actions that foster a more inclusive culture within the company, the company stated.
Those goals include achieving parity at the vice president-and-above level for U.S. minorities by increasing minority representation from 19% to 32% and doubling the underrepresented population of African-Americans/Blacks and Hispanics/Latinx/Native Americans by 2025.
Similarly, the opportunity parity goal for women was updated to reach global parity of 47% at the vice president-and-above level by 2025, Pfizer said. In addition, the company redirected the Summer Student Worker Program, which resulted in a higher percentage of participating students from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds. The company will continue to work with its minority partners to continue to increase internship opportunities for minority students.
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