This "Missing Pieces Report - The 2018 Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards" from Deloitte’s Center for Board Effectiveness in collaboration with the Alliance for Board Diversity documents board gender and minority diversity among Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies - illustrating encouraging, albeit still slow, progress.
Key findings include:
- Women and minorities comprised an all-time high of 38.6% of Fortune 100 board seats (compared to 34% for the Fortune 500) in 2018.
- Compared to any other group or gender, African American/Black women and Asian/Pacific Islander women experienced the largest percentage increase in board seats among both Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies - 26.2% and 38.6%, respectively.
- Women and minority directors have higher "recycle rates" (i.e., service on multiple boards) than Caucasian/White men (see Appendix 4) - indicating a greater tendency for companies to pull non-Caucasian/White candidates from other boards in lieu of first-time director candidate pools.
- Fortune 100 minority men made almost as much progress in the last two years as they did in the 12 prior years - up 0.8% from 2016 (representing 13.7% of directors in 2018) compared to a 1% cumulative increase in board representation over the 12 previous years.