You Can’t Buy Coffee in Peru with Dollars

November 25, 2025

Trying to make the social justice case for DEI in a for-profit corporation is like trying to buy coffee in Peru with US dollars. The money might be valuable, but it’s the wrong currency. Andrés Tapia gave us this powerful metaphor to explain why many DEI programs are failing.

Social justice is the currency of nonprofits and civil rights organizations. Profit is the currency of for-profit corporations. For years, many in the DEI space made that mistake. They talked about the right thing to do, organizational justice, fairness. Post-2020, when consumers demanded companies take a stand on values, it worked. But that was short-lived and reactive.

Now, with 2025 demanding the opposite of 2020, organizations are talking about legal risk and questioning DEI’s ROI. They’re walking away because the currency stopped working.

The traditional business case doesn’t work

What about the traditional business case that says diverse companies perform better financially?

Despite correlative stats, research shows that when companies increase diversity on executive teams, they don’t see a financial impact—automatically. Adding two more women to the board doesn’t boost the stock price—automatically. That’s magical thinking.

Companies with more diverse leadership do tend to perform better. But “tend to” isn’t a strategy. Correlation isn’t causation. When correlation was sold as a guarantee, leaders got skeptical when it didn’t happen immediately—and automatically.

The impact case: Business goals first

The case that works is the impact case. Start with the business goal. Then use diversity, enabled by inclusion, sustained by equity, as the strategy to achieve that goal. In business, the business goal comes first. Always.

Tapia puts it this way: If a company has 30-40% attrition among certain demographic groups, that’s like having 40% inefficiencies on the assembly line. Any CEO would say that’s unacceptable. No one would tolerate that level of waste anywhere else in the business.

That’s an impact conversation. The business goal is reducing attrition. The strategy is building inclusion practices that make people want to stay. The measurement is: Did attrition go down? By how much? What was the ROI?

Don’t start with “we need more diversity.” Start with “we have a retention problem costing us millions.” Then diversity becomes the solution, not the goal.

The companies standing firm right now tied diversity to specific business outcomes.Tarang Amin at e.l.f. Beauty went on CNN and talked about how gender diversity on their board led to specific performance outcomes. When asked if his stance could put him at odds with the administration, he said, “We are who we are and we’re very clear.”

Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase, David Solomon at Goldman Sachs, Christian Sewing at Deutsche Bank are doing the same thing. They built inclusive practices. Those practices reduced attrition, increased innovation, improved market access. Data meet ROI.

The heart piece

Tapia makes a distinction that matters. Social justice as a personal driver is different from social justice as a foundational premise for the work.

DEI practitioners don’t have to lose their moral home base just because they’re transacting in business currency. They go back to social justice to get regrounded. DEI practitioners are bicultural, multi-currency people. They go to the corporation, transact in impact language, but don’t lose sight of their home base.

That’s the sustainable approach.

What’s next

The companies surviving this moment embedded diversity into talent strategy, innovation strategy, and market strategy. They can show the causative link. The struggling companies built their DEI infrastructure on social justice language or correlative business stats. They can’t pivot fast enough.

Tapia says many good leaders depended on DEI programs to give them the reminder, the oomph. Now those programs are going away. So it’s up to them. Who are they spending their time with? Who are they nurturing?

Rather than depending on a program, it’s for leaders to say, “Who am I going to commit to on this day and every day to make sure I’m providing the opportunities that should be provided?”

That’s their work now.

For practitioners, the work is translating the currency. Building the impact case. Making sure leaders understand this is about causation, not correlation. About outcomes, not intentions.

Three things leaders can do now

Audit DEI language for impact. Reframe everything in terms of impact. What specific business problem are you solving? What inclusion practices are you implementing? What outcomes are you measuring?

Start with business goals, not diversity goals.

High attrition? That’s a talent problem. Low innovation? Systems. That’s a creativity problem. Diversity isn’t a problem to solve; it solves problems. Inclusion isn’t feeling valued; it’s being able to contribute value. Equity isn’t fair people; it’s fair systems.

Protect the moral home base. You’re living in two worlds now. You’re transacting in impact currency at work, but you don’t have to lose why you’re doing this. Go back to the home base regularly. Get regrounded..

Listen to the full conversation with Andrés Tapia on In This Moment at inthismomentpodcast.com.