Heidrick & Struggles' annual Board Monitor revealed that women comprised 38% of the 358 total newly-appointed Fortune 500 independent directors in 2017 - the largest percentage of women among new directors since the firm's tracking began in 2009. As a proportion of total seats filled, the financial services and consumer sectors appointed the most women directors in 2017.
Additional key findings based on 2017 data include:
- Nearly 36% of new directors had no prior board experience, compared to 25% in 2016.
- Current and former CEOs accounted for 47% of director appointments, continuing a steady decline from the high of nearly 55% in 2013.
- 72% of new appointees had international experience – up 11% from last year.
- African-American board appointments increased from 9% to 11%, with about 33% of those new directors appointed to industrial boards, 23% to consumer boards, and 21% to financial services boards. Hispanic and Asian-American appointments as a % of all new director board appointments both remained at their 2016 levels of 6%.
See the infographic summary on page 4 of the report, Heidrick & Struggles' release, last year's report: "Board Diversity at an Impasse?" and additional resources on our Board Composition, Board Diversity, and Board Succession/Refreshment pages.
This post first appeared in last week's Society Alert!