Diane Lerner is a Managing Partner and Christine Oberholzer Skizas is a Partner at Pay Governance LLC. This post is based on a Pay Governance memorandum.
Interest in, and momentum toward, greater diversity in the boardrooms of U.S. publicly traded companies is increasing. We believe this is due to a combination of international developments, workplace trends and investor sentiment.
Although all aspects of diversity are meaningful topics, this post is solely focused on gender diversity. Currently, females represent approximately 15% of outside board member seats in the S&P 1500 and about 18% of the S&P 500 seats. This equates to a median of 1-2 female board members in a group of 9-11 board members.
While the overall statistics for U.S. companies are regularly reported, relatively little has been written about those U.S. public company boards that have moved farther down the path of gender diversity. For the purpose of our review, we define “gender diverse” at 30% female directors or more, using a standard typical in countries who have enacted legislation. Assuming more companies will want to reach a 30%+ level of gender diversity over the next decade, we wanted to study companies that have already achieved this level. We wanted to identify any specific similar characteristics that can be found at these companies and to learn more through selected interviews about the paths to a gender diverse board.