5/14/2021
Boards Are Adding More Women and Minorities Ahead of Nasdaq Rule
Bloomberg (05/14/21) Green, Jeff
For the first time, women hold almost one-third of all board seats at S&P 500 companies, according to recruiter Russell Reynolds Associates. Latino board appointments at public companies quadrupled from a year ago, and 145 S&P 500 companies have added at least one Black director since last June, a much faster pace than past years. Keith Meyer, co-head of board and chief executive for recruiting at Allegis Partners, said as recently as a year ago, only around half of his clients asked about finding women and minority candidates. Now, "ninety plus percent of every board search that we've been asked to execute in the last nine months has had a strong focus on diversity, especially ethnic diversity," Meyer said. The momentum has been driven largely by controversial quotas, similar to the rule proposed by Nasdaq Inc. The stock exchange wants to require listed companies to have at least one female and one underrepresented director. The Securities and Exchange Commission will decide by August whether to approve Nasdaq's proposal.
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