Women In Business: Top US Companies See 25% Increase In Female Leaders On Corporate Boards, Study Says

Among the 500 largest U.S. companies, also known as the Fortune 500, just under 31 percent of board seats belonged to women and minorities in 2016, leaving nearly 70 percent of seats to white men, a new study released Monday found. The portion of female and non-white board members grew only slightly over that of 2012, when they held just a quarter of board seats, compared to 75 percent filled by white men, according to the study conducted by the consulting firm Deloitte and the Alliance for Board Diversity, a group of organizations advocating for workplace advancement of women and minorities.

While the study reported growth of corporate board diversity, it also noted that “the pace at which the Fortune 500 boards are becoming more diverse is slow.” When it came to board leadership, the disparity was even starker, with white men constituting nearly 82 percent of all lead directors and 90.5 percent of board chairs, compared to, respectively, 1.2 percent and less than half of a percentage point of minority women, who made up the smallest share.

A similar diversity deficit exists among the firms’ top jobs. Within its list of 500 largest companies ranked by revenue, only 4 percent of chief executive officers were female, Fortune reported in June—just 21 women led those top companies, down from 24 the previous year.

Those companies may have good reason to close the gap. The Deloitte-Alliance for Board Diversity study highlighted the importance of having a board with “a range of skills, experiences and perspectives that can help safeguard an organization against new and emerging threats” and can “better serve the diverse customer base that exists today.”

Women and men bring not only a nominal diversity, but a diversity of thought to the workplace, according to a survey of nearly 1,400 CEOs by the consulting firm PwC Global released Jan. 20. The portion of female executives who believed technology would reshape their industry, at 55 percent, towered over that of male leaders, with 33 percent. The portion of female CEOs confident about revenue growth was about 11 percentage points lower than that of male CEOs, while 5 percent more female CEOs than male CEOs felt confident about global growth.

On top of adding a new perspective to company leadership, there may be a financial incentive to promote more women to higher leadership levels. As a survey of nearly 22,000 businesses found, firms with women in corporate leadership are also likely to post higher profits.