Capping remarkable drive, BBVA Compass gets perfect score in 2018 Corporate Equality Index

The achievement — announced Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which administers the CEI — caps a remarkable drive by BBVA Compass to build a workforce that fully reflects the clients and businesses it serves. In the 2012 CEI, the bank received a score of 55. Since then it has steadily improved its culture and benefits to be more inclusive, adding domestic partner benefits and various workplace protections along the way. In last year’s CEI, it scored a 90 — the highest of any company headquartered in Alabama.*

“I could not be more proud,” said BBVA Compass Chief Talent & Culture Executive Rosilyn Houston. “We recognized we could do better and worked hard, year after year, to steer BBVA Compass in a direction that’s more inclusive and would help it attract the best talent. We’re not just checking a box and we’re most certainly not finished, however. We will continue to do what we need to do to make BBVA Compass a best place to work no matter the measuring stick.”

Houston: We’re not just checking a box and we’re most certainly not finished, however. We will continue to do what we need to do to make BBVA Compass a best place to work no matter the measuring stick.

This is not the first time BBVA Compass has been recognized for its workplace diversity and inclusion efforts. It landed on DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity list for the first time earlier this year. In awarding BBVA Compass a spot, DiversityInc pointed in part to the makeup of the bank’s senior leadership ranks and also its strong commitment to supplier diversity. The percentage of minorities in the bank’s senior leadership is higher than the average among the Top 50 companies by 88.4 percent, or nearly double the average on the DiversityInc list.

The 2018 CEI rated 947 businesses in the report, which evaluates LGBTQ-related policies and practices, including non-discrimination workplace protections, domestic partner benefits, transgender-inclusive health care benefits, competency programs and public engagement with the LGBTQ community. BBVA Compass’ efforts in satisfying all of the CEI’s criteria and earning a 100 percent ranking also earned it the designation as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality.

“This is such a meaningful designation for us,” said BBVA Compass Director of Corporate Responsibility and Reputation Reymundo Ocañas, whose team helps steer the bank’s overall diversity and inclusion efforts in partnership with the Talent & Culture and Procurement areas. “I hope it serves as a strong signal to people already working at the bank and those considering doing so that we value their happiness. It sounds so simple, but we understand that for LGBTQ individuals it’s sometimes anything but, especially for those who feel they can’t be their authentic selves at work.”

Ocañas: I hope it serves as a strong signal to people already working at the bank and those considering doing so that we value their happiness. It sounds so simple, but we understand that for LGBTQ individuals it’s sometimes anything but, especially for those who feel they can’t be their authentic selves at work

For more information on the 2018 Corporate Equality Index, or to download a free copy of the report, visit www.hrc.org/cei. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation is the educational arm of America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

* BBVA Compass’ headquarters is in Birmingham, Ala.; its holding company, BBVA Compass Bancshares Inc., is based in Houston.