"She had a kind, loving, warm spirit, and we will never forget her," said Laurie Robinson Haden, founder and CEO of Corporate Counsel Women of Color.

As the measure hangs in the balance, the big question for GCs at companies covered under the rule is whether to have a "hard mandate" that requires employees to get vaccinated or go with a "soft mandate" that lets workers skip the shot as long as they get weekly COVID-19 tests.

"Nike cannot currently claim leadership on diversity data transparency and our expectation is that it will begin to find itself isolated from its peers," said Meredith Benton, founder of Whistle Stop Capital.

"He came in with all of these aggressive ideas and they were just very unrealistic expectations. He didn't want any feedback from the leaders who had been there."