Chief Diversity Officers Take On New Visibility, Challenges JLL (NYSE: JLL ), the Chicago-headquartered commercial real estate services company, announced the appointment this week of Ingrid Jacobs to the newly created global role of head of diversity and inclusion. Why It's Important: JLL is the latest publicly traded company to add diversity officer positions into their senior executive hierarchy. In recent months, chief diversity officer positions were established at CBRE (NYSE: CBRE ), XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO ), National Grid (NYSE: NGG ), Cadence Bancorp (NYSE: CADE ), Aramark (NYSE: ARMK ), Alexion (NASDAQ: ALXN ) and Cushman Wakefield (NYSE: CWK ). The concept of a chief diversity officer is not new: the position can be traced back to academia in the 1970s, when colleges and universities began to establish "minority affairs" positions in response to the rising number of nonwhite students. In the private sector, the issue of bringing greater diversity within the workforce, the C-Suite and the board room has percolated for years without dramatic change.