Over the past year, employees at Alphabet Inc.’s Google have protested over worker rights, a military contract, and the handling of sexual misconduct. Now, along with shareholders, they’ve written a resolution [filed by Zevin Asset Management] to Alphabet’s board, calling for reform in areas including racial and gender diversity, and asking the board to consider…
Category: board diversity
Diversity Thresholds: How Social Norms, Visibility, and Scrutiny Relate to Group Composition | Academy of Management Journal
Analyses of S&P 1500 boards reveal that significantly more boards include exactly two women (the descriptive social norm) than would be expected by chance. This overrepresentation of two-women boards–a phenomenon we call “twokenism”–is more pronounced among more visible companies, consistent with our theorizing around impression management and scrutiny. Experimental data corroborate these findings and provide…
Looking at wealth management through a “gender lens”
Andrew Behar, head of As You Sow, a San Francisco Bay-area shareholders advocacy group, said putting women in positions of power is simply good for business.“It really creates a better culture that’s going to reduce risk. That’s going to attract the best and the brightest talent,” he said.Behar’s organization offers a free online tool that…
Corporate boards are diversifying. The C-suite isn’t. – The Washington Post
Large companies — those worth $5 billion or more — appointed nearly three times as many women as men to their boards of directors during the second and third quarters last year, showing just how eager they are to diversify their governance teams and comply with mounting pressure for equality. “The more women board directors…
Canadian Pension Steps Up Gender Board Diversity Advocacy | Chief Investment Officer
The C$368.3 billion ($270.6 billion) Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is looking to improve the gender balance of public company boards with its new Global Gender Diversity Voting Practice. Under the new policy, CPPIB will vote against the chair responsible for director nominations at the public companies it invests in if the board has…
Goldman Board Goes On Female Hiring Spree, Leaves Old-Boy Era Behind – TheStreet
The boardroom of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) is finally catching up with the #metoo era.The Wall Street firm, historically man-heavy in its executive suite as well as among directors, said Thursday it had named former U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Jan Tighe to its board. Her appointment boosts the share of women on the board to four out of…
Heidrick & Struggles Takes Action with Board Diversity Pledge Globally
Search firm Heidrick & Struggles has announced that on an annual basis at least half of its cumulative slate of initial board candidates presented to clients will be diverse, reaffirming a commitment to promoting diversity in board of director searches globally. Developed in collaboration with Stanford’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Heidrick & Struggles’ pledge is designed…
In Boardroom, Blackstone CEO Schwarzman Surrounds Himself With Men – TheStreet
What interested us most in this article about the poor record of private equity firms on board diversity was this detail about Carlyle’s focus on the board diversity of its holdings as well as its own board. Carlyle, another big private-equity firm based in Washington, hired Kara Helander last month as chief diversity officer to focus…
PWC on Corporate Boards: Cyber Threats, #Metoo, Diversity, and What Shareholders Want
PWC on Corporate Boards: Cyber Threats, #Metoo, Diversity, and What Shareholders Want PWC’s annual director survey is one of our most trusted resources on corporate governance from the perspective of the boardroom, and this year’s edition has some significant findings on issues like diversity, CEO pay, climate change, cybersecurity, and the gap between what board members…
Governor Brown Signs Historic Board Diversity Legislation
VEA’s Annalisa Barrett writes: Today, California’s Governor Brown signed California Senate Bill 826 which requires publicly-traded companies with principal executive offices in California to have women on their boards. Specifically, all such companies will have to have at least one woman on their boards by December 31 2019, and one, two or three women –…
