Gender Diversity in the Boardroom.

• Author: Chase, Scott
• Position: Top Articles on www.DirectorsAndBoards.com

Last July's presentation of our Directors to Watch Class of 2019, profiling 22 superlative women directors, occurred just days after the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz issued a memo citing "board diversity and expanding the pool" as a top priority for publicly traded companies in the coming months. The memo went so far as to suggest that boards increase their numbers "to accommodate new talent in advance of an incumbent director's departure, including in the case of highly qualified diverse candidates."

Nearly no one foresaw the strange new world we live in today. Everyone, everywhere--not just CEOs and directors--now knows that an "event," predicted or otherwise, can change the world almost overnight. This tells us that no amount of planning can really be too much planning, and that even the most outlandish scenarios must be evaluated within...