Google has appointed Danielle Brown as vice-president of diversity.
Brown joins the company from Intel, where she was vice-president and chief diversity and inclusion officer.
Google announced in a blog post that Brown will start work in July and will be responsible for managing the company's diversity and inclusion strategy.
"She will do so by partnering with our senior executives on this vital work. While we've made progress in recent years for both women and people of colour, there are areas for improvement across the board ? in terms of our hiring, our promotion and retention, our commitments, our working environment, and how we measure success or failure. Brown will look at our efforts in all these areas afresh and [we] are excited to work with her," the company said.
The appointment comes off the back of the company's release of its workforce representation data for 2017. This shows 31% of its employees are women, an increase from 17% in 2014. Women in leadership roles have also increased from 21% to 25% in the past three years.
Hispanic employees make up 4% of Google's workforce, while 5% of the non-tech staff are black.
In the past year, Hispanic Googlers have grown from 3% to 4% of employees, while black Googlers make up only 1% of the technical workforce.
Eileen Naughton, Google's vice-president for people operations, acknowledges more can be done and the company is working towards that.
"Since 2014, when we first released data on Google's racial and gender makeup, we've taken steps to create a more diverse and inclusive workforce, but there is still much more to do.
"We recently launched Howard West, a three-month engineering residency on our campus for Howard University computer science majors. Our Google in Residence initiative, which embeds Google engineers at historically black colleges and universities, is also continuing into its sixth year. As with blacks and Hispanics, hiring more female engineers ? and empowering them to thrive ? is also a top priority."
Naughton notes Brown's appointment will push the mandate forward as she comes with a wealth of experience.
Brown takes over from Nancy Lee, who stepped down from the role six months ago.
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