Boards taking steps to promote diversity.

• Author: Ladd, Scott
• Position: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Corporate boards in the United States are taking steps to promote diversity in the boardroom, from enacting new policies to asking executive recruiters to make recommendations on candidates for board membership who reflect more diverse experience and backgrounds.

Those were some of the insights revealed in a survey of corporate directors by Corporate Board Member magazine and executive search consulting firm Spencer Stuart.

A majority (75 PERCENT) of corporate boards in the U.S. are taking a broad range of actions to promote diversity in the boardroom.

The study also found that the basis for the directors' actions is mostly self-driven.

Only 11 PERCENT of those surveyed reported having shareholders approach the company within the last three years about increasing race and/or gender diversity on the board.

The responses revealed that the three most common diversity initiatives were asking search firms to provide diverse candidates (63 PERCENT), proactively including boardroom diversity as a board meeting agenda topic (56.5 PERCENT) and instituting a board diversity policy (50 PERCENT). Less than a majority (42 PERCENT) required a diverse slate of candidate for every open board seat.

"Lack of turnover in the boardroom is a contributing problem," said Julie Daum, co-leader of Spencer Stuart's North American Board & CEO practice.

Supporting this point, 58 PERCENT of those surveyed said the rule imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that requires companies to disclose their policy on boardroom diversity will have a positive impact on promoting it.

Challenges in achieving greater diversity were also explored. About 72 PERCENT pointed to balancing all the interests at hand with those they believe are most important when looking to...