2019 Corporate Salute Recap & Census Results

The Boston Club • November 8, 2019

On Thursday, November 7, The Boston Club was thrilled to welcome Dame Amelia Fawcett as our distinguished speaker at the 2019 Boston Club Corporate Salute. Dame Amelia has been the Chairman of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments in London since 2001. She is also Chairman of Kinnevik in Stockholm and is the Lead Director of State Street Corporation. Additionally, she was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) and a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in recognition of her services to the financial services industry.

Boston Globe

here

2019 Census Results

At the Salute, we released the results of our 2019 Census of Women Directors and Executive Officers of Massachusetts Public Companies. While there is certainly room for improvement, there was some very good news as well.

Here are a number of key takeaways:

Women comprise a record high 24.0% of the board seats in the 2019 Census companies, up from 21.0% last year.
98 of the 100 Census companies have at least one woman on their board, nine more than in 2018.
Women accounted for over half (52.6%) of the independent directors added to the Census companies this year, up from 41.7% a year ago.
Directors of Census companies who are women of color rose over 30%, from 22 to 29.
Women account for at least 30% of the executive officers at 21 of the Census companies, up from 10 companies last year.
Women account for 27.5% of the independent directors, up from 23.9% a year ago.
71 of the Census companies have two or more female directors, up from 61 a year ago.
33 of the Census companies have three or more female directors, nine more than last year.
In four Census companies, women comprise 50% or more of the independent directors, and in two others, women are at least 40% of the independent directors.
Women of color now account for 3.2% of all Census directors, up from 2.5% last year
Women account for 40% or more of the executive officers in nine Census companies, up from four a year ago.
There are 15 more women executive officers in the Census companies this year than last, representing a 15.6% increase.
Three more Census companies (64) have at least one woman executive officer this year than last.
The number of Census companies with two or more women in their executive suites rose to 29 this year, two more than a year ago.
12 Census companies have three or more woman executive officers.*
36 of the Census companies still have no women executive officers.
Despite the progress noted above, women now hold just 16.3% (111) of the executive officer positions in the Census companies.
Three of the continuing Census companies that had a woman in the executive suite in 2018, now have none.
Only 6.9% of the executive officers in the Census companies in the Technology sector are women, and this percentage declined since last year.