When Prudential Financial's Rick Meade first heard more than a decade ago that some of his colleagues at the nation's top companies were prioritizing the hiring of more minority-owned law firms, he wanted to join them. But back in 2006, he said his company's efforts on that front weren't developed enough for him to jump in just yet.

Over the next few years, Meade, who is the vice president and CLO for international businesses at Prudential Financial, collaborated with a handful of other senior lawyers and they decided to be proactive and start engaging women- and minority-owned businesses through their own efforts.

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“Everybody was doing their own thing, which was great, but we wanted to organize and create some momentum to stretch this idea further,” said Meade, who is the chairperson of the Inclusion Initiative, a group of corporations dedicated to hiring a diverse group of lawyers as outside counsel.