Tate: Deregulation We Can All Agree On

[Commentary] Here's the top ten suggestions for what both the public and private sector can do to promote diversity:

1. Bring back the Tax Certificate Policy.

2. Hold access to capital hearings on a regular basis in financial and media centers like Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, and Dallas.

3. Investors must make diversity a priority in their overall portfolios.

4. Venture capital firms should create leadership development programs to better prepare women and minorities to lead fast-growth businesses, whether high-tech or not.

5. Major corporations and trade associations should encourage and sponsor additional research to examine the process by which men, women-, and minority-led ventures are screened by angel and venture capital firms, to determine if there are any differences; and based on that research, establish blind review processes where necessary.

6. Trade associations should enlist marketing experts and corporate coaches, as well as PR and image consultants to donate their time to assist borrowers and buyers to present their best-case scenarios to financial institutions and investors.

7. Companies should track investments and performance of investments by gender, race, and ethnicity, as well as geographic location, and sponsor research to examine the extent to which venture capitalists, angels, and limited partners (pension funds, endowments, and insurance companies) perceive investments in women and minority-led ventures as more risky investments.

8. States and large corporations should set aside funds for small, disadvantaged, women and minority investments.

9. Companies should establish internships and structured mentoring programs to help women and minorities get into the pipeline so they can eventually be considered for leadership and ownership positions.

10. The Federal Communications Commission -- and indeed all government agencies -- should launch a review of all of agency rules and repeal the ones that impede diversity while serving no critical purpose.