Yum! Brands Recognized In Black Enterprise’s "40 Best Companies For Diversity" For Fourth Consecutive Year

Diversity Drives Culture and Business at World’s Largest Restaurant Company

Yum! Brands, Inc., parent company of A&W All-American Food, KFC, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, has been named one of BLACK ENTERPRISE Magazine’s “40 Best Companies for Diversity” for its comprehensive results across key diversity measures for the fourth consecutive year.

BLACK ENTERPRISE’s fourth annual list of the best companies for diversity is featured in the July 2008 edition. The Magazine evaluated diversity programs, consulted with diversity experts and surveyed over 1,000 of the country’s largest public companies and more than 50 leading global companies with significant U.S. operations. The Magazine made its selection based on the number of African-Americans and members of other ethnic minority groups in four categories including supplier diversity, senior management, Board of Directors and total workforce diversity.

BLACK ENTERPRISE reported that supplier diversity and total workforce diversity are two areas in which Yum! Brands is particularly strong. The Magazine said the following about Yum! Brands in its July issue: “Yum!’s supplier diversity spend has grown from one percent to eight percent in the last 10 years. The company also has a rigorous succession planning process that examines diversity gaps in each function and sets action plans to achieve those goals.”

“It is vitally important to us to hire, retain and develop the right people, with diverse backgrounds and styles, who have the ability and attitude to be Customer Maniacs,” said David C. Novak, Chairman and CEO, Yum! Brands, Inc. “BLACK ENTERPRISE’s recognition helps fuel our passion to go for breakthrough results that make us a world leader in diversity and inclusion. Through the global power of Yum!, our brands and our franchisees, we are leveraging our diversity around the world to build a culture where everyone can and does make a business difference by freely contributing their views, ideas, styles, cultures and perspectives,” added Novak. For the past several years, Yum! Brands has been recognized for its commitment to diversity. More than 50 percent of Yum!’s U.S. workforce are minorities as well as more than 50 percent of the company’s new hires. In addition, the company has been named one of FORTUNE magazine’s “Top 50 Employers for Minorities” for the past four years, one of FORTUNE’s “Top 50 Employers for Women,” one of BLACK ENTERPRISE’s “30 Hottest Franchises for 2006,” one of the “Corporate 100 Companies Providing Opportunities for Hispanics” by Hispanic Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity” by Hispanic Enterprise Magazine and by BusinessWeek as one of the “Top 15 Companies for In-Kind Corporate Philanthropy.”

Yum!’s strategy for leveraging diversity includes franchising and supplier diversity. Yum! supports minority entrepreneurship through its sponsorship of the National Minority Supplier Development Council and is a founding member of the National Minority Franchising Initiative, the International Franchise Association’s Diversity Institute and the Women’s Franchise and Distribution Forum.

In addition to franchising and supplier diversity, Yum!’s diversity strategy includes employment, leadership development and community involvement. Over 25 percent of Yum!’s annual corporate giving goes to support predominantly minority communities. Each year Yum! partners with our multicultural customers through high impact programs like: College Black Expos, KFC Pride 360°, the NCLR Charter School Arts Grant, Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) Youth and College Programs, the American Indian College Scholarship Fund, lead sponsorship of the National NAACP Youth and College Division, creation of the Hispanic Enterprise Hispana Leadership Summit, and a strategic partnership with National Urban League’s Young Professionals and Urban Influence Magazine, among others.

Many of Yum! Brands’ philanthropic efforts are focused on minority community giving and employee volunteerism. The Yum! Brands Foundation has committed approximately $1 million to the Louisville-based Muhammad Ali Center, an international cultural and educational institution, for the advancement of humanity worldwide and $250,000 for the creation of the Children’s Educational Center as part of the Kentucky Center for African-American Heritage.

Yum! and its brands also have been committed to fighting hunger for more than a decade by donating $50 million of prepared food annually to the underprivileged in the United States. The company has been the primary sponsor of the Dare to Care Food Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, donating $1 million annually for the past seven years to feed 90,000 hungry children in underserved minority communities. In addition, last year Yum! Brands launched the world’s largest private sector hunger relief effort, in partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme and other hunger relief agencies. This effort raised $16 million for the World Food Programme and other hunger relief organizations and helped save over 1.6 million people from starvation in remote corners of the world, where hunger is most prevalent.