When the Cleveland Browns hired Kevin Stefanski in January, owner Jimmy Haslam, responding to a question about the NFL having only three Black head coaches, said the organization’s “record in diversity hiring is pretty strong.”

Eleven days later, the Browns made Andrew Berry the youngest general manager in league history. More significantly, the 33-year-old Berry is one of just two Black GMs in the NFL.

At that point, some members of the Browns’ senior leadership team got to work on trying to do their part to address what has long been a problem in many businesses: the lack of women and people of color in prominent roles.

“We turned an eye toward our business side, and looking at our organization and other organizations around the league, the lack of diverse leadership was notable,” said Dave Jenkins, a Browns senior vice president and the club’s chief operating officer.

The three Black head coaches — Brian Flores of the Miami Dolphins, Anthony Lynn of the L.A. Chargers and Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers — are five fewer than the record of eight who started the 2018 season in charge of an NFL team.

Two people of color in the GM position is four fewer than the number who were in the role in 2017.

And in a league in which more than 70% of the players are minorities, an annual report by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport on the NFL’s hiring of women and minorities showed that people of color occupied only 12.8% of the positions at the VP level and above among the league’s 32 teams in 2019. The percentage of women at the VP level or above was 20.7.

Richard Lapchick, the institute’s director, gave the league’s 32 teams diversity grades of D+ and F for their hiring of people of color and women for top executive roles.

The Browns, Jenkins said, had quite a few discussions on how the organization could address a problem that goes beyond the NFL.

“Like many issues that we face right now and are being talked about, proper action can help resolve that,” Jenkins said.

The Browns created the Bill Willis Coaching Fellowship, which selects an up-and-coming minority coach and gives him or her a chance to spend a season working with the team’s coaching staff.

On the business side, the Haslam Sports Group on Wednesday, Sept. 2, introduced a Diversity and Opportunity Fellowship that will bring in four recent college graduates and have them split a year working for the Browns and Columbus Crew.

The quartet will receive a salary and housing. They’ll spend three months working in each of four disciplines (sales, marketing, operations and administration), with the idea that the varied roles will better prepare them for full-time employment.

An online application encourages people of color, women and other diverse candidates to apply. The Browns worked with Spelman and Morehouse, two historically Black colleges in Atlanta, along with Ohio State University as they set up the fellowship.

“We really do want to compete with the top recruiters on campuses each fall — the banks, the consulting firms, professional service firms that come to campus,” Jenkins said. “We’re really trying to be thoughtful with how we go about this.”

Candidates must have a grade-point average of 3.3 or higher. A passion for sports and knowledge about the industry “is helpful but not required,” the application says.

What is required, beyond a strong GPA and a recent bachelor’s degree: “a positive attitude, strong work ethic, adaptability and intellectual curiosity.”

The four disciplines each have an in-house lead who is developing the fellowship program. Each field, like the desired candidate pool, is diverse.

Administration, for example, encompasses human resources, finance, legal, IT, business analytics and ticket operations. And working in the NFL, Jenkins pointed out, is “very different” from being part of a Major League Soccer organization.

“There will be great opportunities not just for the candidates to get exposure to all of our elements of our business, but also for people within our business to develop mentoring skills, to develop curriculum, etc.,” the Browns’ chief operating officer said. “It should be a really rewarding experience for everybody.”

The deadline to apply is Sept. 25. Interviews begin on Oct. 12, and the Browns and Crew hope to make offers on Nov. 20.

The first year of the program will run from July 12, 2021, to July 1, 2022.

“It’s interesting: When you look at the 12-month calendar across those four business segments, there really isn’t a quiet time within each one of those segments across the 12 months,” Jenkins said.

The Browns’ longest-tenured executive said senior leaders, including the Haslam and Johnson ownership group, will be involved in the selection process.

When the fellowship is complete, Haslam Sports Group expects to help the fellows find a full-time job in the sports industry. The Browns, not wanting to set unrealistic expectations, were careful to note on the application that “it is not anticipated” that the fellows will receive an offer from Haslam Sports Group when the one-year run is complete.

Still, the organization isn’t ruling it out.

“It really is how can we find high-achieving, high-potential, diverse candidates, introduce them to this industry and to our organizations, really position them to have a better understanding of the industry, and let them figure out if they would like to be a part of the industry going forward,” Jenkins said. “I think any organization, when you come across high performer, a top talent, if there’s a way to figure out how to keep them, you always strive to do that.”