Corporations in the United States have pledged for years to increase the number of Hispanic, Black, Asian-American and other underrepresented members on their boards, which make decisions that affect the livelihoods of millions. Yet a comprehensive new survey finds that they have made little progress.
The boards of the 3,000 largest publicly traded companies remain overwhelmingly white. Underrepresented ethnic and racial groups make up 40 percent of the U.S. population but just 12.5 percent of board directors, up from 10 percent in 2015, according to a new analysis by the Institutional Shareholder Services’ ESG division. The firm, which announced a database of the findings on Tuesday, advises investors on how to vote in board elections and on other corporate matters.
Black directors make up just 4 percent of the total, up from 3 percent in 2015, while Black women make up just 1.5 percent of the more than 20,000 directors included in the analysis, which goes beyond other surveys that included only the 500 largest public companies.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Peter Eavis over at the New York Times
