Racial/ethnic directors finally reach 20% of Russell 3000 boards

Here’s the intro from this blog by Cooley’s Cydney Posner:

A study of companies in the Russell 3000 just released by ISS showed that, for the first time, directors who self-identified as racial and ethnic minorities accounted for 20% of all board directorships.  

The study found that each of the minority groups analyzed experienced growth in the percentage of director seats held, with the greatest growth (90% over the study period) occurring among African-American directors, who now hold 8.3% of all board seats in the study group.  According to the Head of ISS Corporate Solutions, these percentages “represent a watershed moment for minority corporate directors broadly and Black directors in particular….The analysis shows the impact of increasing and continual institutional investor engagement with portfolio companies on matters around board diversity coupled with growing stakeholder pressure from various quarters over the past two years.” 

Still, as she told Reuters, “[w]hile this is a huge sea change in terms of the percentages, it still falls short of the ethnic breakdown of the U.S. population….It’s a watershed moment but probably not something to pat ourselves on the back too much about.”