Heidrick & Struggles' annual "Board Monitor" revealed that women comprised nearly 40% of the 462 newly appointed Fortune 500 independent directors in 2018 - the highest percentage of women among new directors since the firm's tracking began in 2009. As a proportion of total seats filled, the Financial Services and Technology sectors appointed the most women directors.
Additional key findings based on 2018 data include:
- About 31% of new directors had no prior board experience, compared to 36% in 2017.
- Current and former CEOs accounted for 60% of director appointments - bucking the downward trend over the past several years, and topping the former all-time high of 55% in 2013. One-third of those with CEO experience were women.
- 68% of new appointees had international experience – down from 72% last year.
- African-American board appointments remained at 11% (an all-time high achieved in 2017), with 35% of those new directors appointed to Industrial boards, 35% to Consumer boards, and 16% to Financial services boards.
- Hispanic appointments as a percentage of all new director board appointments declined from 6% in 2017 to 4% in 2018.
- Asian-American appointments as a percentage of all new director board appointments increased from 6% in 2017 to 8% last year.
See the infographic summary on page 10 of the report, Heidrick & Struggles' release, last year's report, and additional resources on our Board Composition, Board Diversity, and Board Refreshment pages. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!