Corporate Secretary’s newly released report on its 2021 survey of 286 corporate secretaries, in-house counsel, and other governance professionals (68% North America) revealed these and other key takeaways concerning board diversity practices and disclosure among North American respondents:
- Diversity initiatives – 75% of respondents (compared to 73% globally) said their company is taking action to increase its board’s diversity.
- Board/director demographics – 85% of respondents said they disclose gender on an aggregate (38%) or individual (47%) basis; 54% said they disclose race on an aggregate (31%) or individual (23%) basis; and 11% said they disclose sexual orientation on an aggregate (6%) or individual (5%) basis.
- Form of disclosure - Board diversity information is most commonly disclosed in a narrative format (55%), followed by photos (43%), a matrix (31%) and other formats (18%).
- Disclosure medium – Corporate websites (58%) and proxy statements (60%) are most often used for board diversity disclosure. Inclusion of this information in sustainability reports and annual reports is much less common.
- Investor focus – A plurality of respondents said that the company’s investors don’t ask about their board’s diversity; however, across market caps globally, 71% of mega-caps and 57% of large-caps said investors do ask about their board’s diversity, compared to just 33% of mid-caps and 22% of small-caps.
All survey responses are also reported by company size worldwide.
Access additional resources on our Board Diversity and Proxy/Annual Meeting pages. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!