Spencer Stuart's "Board Diversity Snapshot: Six Recommendations for Becoming a More Diverse and Inclusive Board" accompanies its six action items for boards with S&P 500 proxy statement data on the race and ethnicity of the 413 new independent directors added over the past year to the 494 boards included in the "2020 S&P 500 Board Index" (reported on separately below).
Key statistics include:
- Of the total new independent directors, 22% are minorities (compared to 18% five years ago and 12% ten years ago), as follows:
- Notably, a meaningful 7% of new independent minority directors are first-time directors; however, this compares to 21% of non-minority first-time directors, which highlights a huge area of opportunity for boards to identify and support minority candidates who have not previously served on a board. Minority directors currently are more likely to add functional and other line leadership experience and investment management/investor experience to the boardroom compared to non-minority directors.
- Similarly, minority directors are much more likely than non-minority directors to possess non-CEO (current or former) backgrounds, which is not surprising given the current dearth of racially or ethnically diverse CEOs. Seeking candidates "outside the (conventional) box" and developing diverse members of management are among the suggested approaches to increasing board diversity espoused by Spencer Stuart, as well as many institutional investors, diversity advocates, and other organizations.
Access additional resources on our Board Diversity and Racial Equality & Diversity pages. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!