First Union was represented by Nilda deBoyrie, senior vice president and regional managing director of the International Financial Advisory Division, based in Miami.
For the past three years the magazine has presented its LATINA Style 50 award to companies in the U.S. that employ a large number of Hispanics in key positions. In honoring First Union, the magazine noted:
"With an impressive 82 Hispanic women in Vice President positions and nine Hispanic women in Senior Vice President positions, First Union is at the forefront of diversity. Employing nearly 3,300 Latinas, First Union offers employees a management and leadership training program, traditional flextime, daily flextime, compressed work weeks, job sharing, health insurance, a generous maternity and paternity leave and on-site child care."
To select the winners, the magazine did an extensive search among the Fortune 500 companies, as well as key companies active in the Hispanic community. The surveys were complemented through confidential interviews conducted with Latinas throughout corporate America. The LATINA Style 50 is the only national effort to evaluate corporate America's responsiveness to the needs of the modern Hispanic working woman.
Companies responding to the survey were evaluated based on the issues identified by LATINA Style readers as most important to them in the workplace. Areas of evaluation included:
- Number of Latina executives;
- Mentoring programs;
- Educational opportunities;
- Dependent/Child Care Support and leave for childbirth;
- Alternative work policies; and
- Employee benefits.
"Hispanic women in the U.S. workforce number 5 million, and the numbers continue to rise," said Anna Maria Arias, editor and publisher of LATINA Style magazine. "We have gone to great lengths to evaluate these companies. Latinas can be confident that the LATINA Style 50 represents the best Corporate America has to offer to the Latina working woman."
First Union (NYSE:FTU), with $247 billion in assets and stockholders' equity of $15 billion at September 30, 2000, is a leading provider of financial services to 15 million retail and corporate customers throughout the East Coast and the nation. The company operates full-service banking offices in 11 East Coast states and Washington, D.C., and full-service brokerage offices in 45 states and international offices worldwide. Online banking products and services can be accessed through www.firstunion.com.