I, Desiree Ralls-Morrison, personally commit to the following:

Personal Commitment

• As a member of McDonald’s leadership team and its general counsel, I commit to championing diversity, equity and inclusion in the Legal Department, throughout McDonald’s, and throughout the legal industry:
• I will lead by example to ensure that DEI is embedded into my department’s -- and the company’s -- strategy, values, and culture.
• I will use my voice to promote DEI and seek to amplify the voices of diverse employees and others committed to DEI throughout the organization.
• I will help execute McDonald’s Global DEI strategy to represent the diverse communities in which we operate; accelerate a culture of inclusion and belonging; and dismantle barriers to economic opportunity.
• I will acknowledge those who work tirelessly to promote DEI, not just in my department and at McDonald’s, but throughout the legal industry and beyond.
• I will hold myself and my department accountable for efforts towards increasing diversity within the Legal Department, including among senior leadership, as well as increasing the use of diverse outside attorneys and suppliers. I will monitor our progress towards hiring and supplier goals and ensure that our team has the tools, resources, and guidance to identify, attract, and retain diverse talent.
• I will endeavor to identify talented diverse individuals on my team for mentorship, sponsorship, and promotion opportunities, and will urge my direct reports and other senior leaders in the department to do the same.
• I will serve as an ambassador and mentor for diverse talent throughout the legal industry. As part of this commitment, I will seek out mentorship opportunities with diverse law firm attorneys and advocate for their active participation on McDonald’s matters and for advancement opportunities within their organizations.
• I will continue my role as an ambassador and advocate for social justice and DEI in the broader community, including as a founder of the New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund.

Organizational Commitment

• McDonald’s will continue to encourage all of our key U.S. suppliers, including outside law firms, to sign on to the Mutual Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (MCDEI) pledge, which is focused on the following:
• implementation of an organization-wide DEI strategy, including annual training or education for employees to be better DEI practitioners and leaders; 
• increasing representation and underrepresented talent in leadership and in staffing McDonald’s business overall, and increasing use of diverse suppliers; 
• investing in innovation with new partnerships and programs designed to make a measurable difference and creating infrastructure accountability to track progress, share regular updates and best practices on effective programs and measurement.
• McDonald’s Legal Department will act in furtherance of its goals to attract diverse talent to better represent the communities in which we operate, including by continuing to use diverse candidate slates and interview panels. 
• McDonald’s Legal Department will continue to seek out, recognize and support innovation in diversity, equity and inclusion within the legal industry by incentivizing our outside law firms with our EMPOWER Award, which was created to recognize legal service suppliers that go beyond words and demonstrate, through action and innovation, that diversity, equity and inclusion matters to their organizations.
• McDonald’s Legal Department will continue to support and build our relationships with the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD), the Diversity Lab, the National Bar Association, Corporate Counsel Women of Color, National Employment Law Council (NELC) and other minority organizations.
• McDonald’s Legal Department will continue to participate in the LCLD Fellows and Pathfinder program by sponsoring two Fellows and one Pathfinder each year.  

Metrics

• McDonald’s will continue its investment and efforts to increase the diversity of its leadership, including through the following goals: 
  • By the end of 2025, McDonald’s expects to increase representation of historically underrepresented groups in leadership roles (Senior Director and above) located in the U.S. to 35%.
  • By the end of 2025, McDonald’s expects to increase representation of women in leadership roles globally (Senior Director and above) to 45%, with an overall goal to reach gender parity globally in leadership roles (Senior Director and above) by the end of 2030.
  • Aligned with these company-wide goals, McDonald’s Legal Department will endeavor to maintain a diverse leadership team, and to establish goals to increase diverse representation within our department at all levels, and will monitor progress toward these goals.  
• McDonald’s Legal Department will continue to pursue our goal of having diverse slates of candidates for all of our full-time positions and outside counsel engagements.
• Consistent with our company-wide commitment to promoting diversity not just in our own business but also in those with which we work, McDonald’s Legal Department will continue to advocate for staffing of diverse teams on our matters and for inclusive succession planning practices in the development of McDonald’s business relationships.  We will also pay particular attention to supporting diverse lawyers securing origination fees/financial credit for McDonald’s business.   
• We will also endeavor to continue to increase our U.S.-based outside legal spend with diverse attorneys, and expect that by the end of 2025, $5.5M of our U.S.-based legal spend will be committed to diverse-owned suppliers.