Swedish multinational clothing retail company Hennes & Mauritz AB, popularly known as H&M, announced on Wednesday that it has appointed a diversity manager, Bloomberg reported, a week after the company was severely criticised for releasing an advertisement of a black child wearing a hoodie that said “coolest monkey in the jungle”.
Annie Wu, who is the group’s global manager for employee relations, will also be its Global Leader for Diversity and Inclusiveness.
“The recent incident was entirely unintentional, but it demonstrates so clearly how big our responsibility is as a global brand,” the company said in a statement. “Our commitment to addressing diversity and inclusiveness is genuine, therefore we have appointed a global leader, in this area, to drive our work forward.”
The company, however, did not tell what Wu’s new responsibilities will be, CNN Money reported.
The company has been embroiled in controversies before. In November 2015, a social media user criticised H&M South Africa for the lack of diversity in its models. In its reply, the company said it wanted its marketing to “show our fashion in an inspiring way, to convey a positive feeling”. It apologised after facing backlash for insinuating that only white models portray a “positive image”.
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