Courage Against Hate, Richard Dickson, President and CEO, Gap Inc. | Never Is Now 2026

Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once said, 'One person of integrity can make a difference.' I thought about that a lot because it's easy to look around at the scale of what we're fighting and feel like no single voice matters. But Wiesel knew something that we sometimes forget: courage is contagious. One person who chooses to stand up gives others permission to do the same. That's why we created this award: the Courage Against Hate Award. Look, we know corporate America doesn't always get it right. Far too often we've seen companies go silent when silence was the wrong choice. But when a leader does get it right, something remarkable happens. It doesn't just ripple outward, it cascades. One CEO who speaks up encourages another to act. One policy sets a standard that a whole industry starts to follow. One act of courage becomes an avalanche of change. Again, that's exactly why we created the Courage Against Hate Award. It exists to honor leaders from the private sector who don't wait for the winds to shift, who don't look at the polling numbers before deciding where they stand. Leaders who make the fight against hate a business imperative, not just a value statement. We've had some remarkable honorees, people like Tim Cook, Dr. Albert Bourla, Julie Sweet, and Hamdi Ulukaya among others. This year's honoree leads a 15 billion dollar public company. He oversees more than 80,000 employees. But what I most want to tell you this afternoon, what I want to share about him isn't his portfolio. It's his posture. He has made it clear consistently and without apology that there is zero tolerance for hate or bigotry or anti-semitism at his company. He has created ways for his teams to come together to bridge divides, to build empathy even when the outside world seems to be pulling us in the opposite direction. Following recent national tragedies, Gap initiated an internal forum where teams come together to explore complex topics, to bridge divides, and to build empathy in the context of such tragedies. During his previous tenure at Mattel, our honoree helped lead a broader push for representation in play, advancing product lines designed so more children could see themselves reflected, including dolls with a wider range of skin tones and body types and dolls representing disabilities, as well as supporting gender-inclusive play through new offerings. That commitment to inclusion and belonging has been a consistent throughline in his approach to brand stewardship and corporate leadership because he believes what we believe at ADL: that dignity is non-negotiable and that unity is not optional. So, please join me in welcoming the President and CEO of Gap Incorporated and the recipient of ADL's 2024 Courage Against Hate Award, Richard Dickson.