From Cost Center to Growth Engine: Activating ERGs to Drive Business Results

or the business

“Can we activate our ERGs to drive growth for the business?”

That question keeps coming up in my conversations with CHROs and business leaders across industries — and the honest answer, for most organizations, is: you haven’t tried yet.

Here’s what I keep encountering. Executives will tell you they believe in the business benefits of their diverse workforce. But when pressed on measurable growth priorities, they name the standards: expanding the customer base, maintaining profitability, strengthening community and regulatory relationships. All legitimate goals. And yet, when we get inside the organization, the ERGs — the very groups best positioned to contribute — have rarely been invited to the table.

The ERG leaders aren’t always equipped & ready either. Revenue-generating ideas tend to die before they gain traction. Leaders juggle their ERG roles alongside demanding day jobs, navigating managers who view the work as an extracurricular distraction rather than a strategic contribution. Without top-down sponsorship and a clear mandate, even the most passionate leaders struggle to move from periodic cultural programming to business impact.

It takes someone at the top who sees the potential — and deputizes them.

The Consumer Products Playbook

At one large global consumer products company, the CEO challenged the Asian ERG in North America to think about how its members could help reach Asian consumers — one of the fastest-growing segments in the U.S., with over $600 billion in buying power at the time (by the way, it’s now over $1.3 trillion). The ERG brainstormed and landed on three strategic priorities: targeted marketing for a signature brand, two acquisitions, and market entry into India.

What they found was that a country increasingly comfortable with Asian flavors still needed a little prepackaged help to get dinner on the table — and the right acquisition could solve that.

We worked with leaders across business functions to increase their cultural fluency and connect the dots between organizational culture and business strategy. The results: a 200% increase in new market ideas, two acquisitions generating nearly $100 million in annual revenue, reduced time to launch new products, and engagement scores running 7–9 points above the industry average.

Activating Business Impact at PepsiCo

We saw a similar pattern at PepsiCo, where the Head of Sales and Ron Parker, then the Head of HR, deputized the Asian ERG co-leads to generate business-building ideas. My team supported the work through strategic planning sessions and a transformative leadership program: every 18 months, we facilitated a two-day offsite with thirty high-potential mid-level Asian leaders focused on leadership vision, cultural fluency, communicating with impact, and expanding their professional networks.

The majority of participants worked in support functions like IT, audit, and finance. Very few held external-facing roles like sales, marketing, or supply chain. But over time, as we invested in developing their leadership, business opportunities followed. Several ERG members found a way to strengthen the sales relationship with AAHOA — the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. Others built connections with ethnic-specific retail associations like the Korean American Grocers Association, opening channels well beyond the big-box retailers PepsiCo had already targeted.

This story is found in further detail in Flex/The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences.

What This Requires

When senior leaders deputize ERG members and trust them to bring their unique value proposition to the business — and resource them with real support — employees go from celebrating heritage months to contributing to multi-million-dollar acquisitions.

Their lived experiences help companies avoid costly missteps and create offerings that resonate with diverse audiences. In industries where innovation is the lifeblood of competitiveness, this kind of insight is critical to nurture and must be developed over time. And the ERG members will need guidance — and a way to increase their own cultural fluency skills as leaders — to make this a reality inside a complex organization.

One question worth asking: Which of your 2026 business priorities could your ERGs help accelerate — if you gave them a seat at the table and the mandate to deliver?

Source: Hyun & Lee, Flex/The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences, HarperCollins