October 2021 Report

In October, US public companies appointed 139 women and 208 men to their boards.

This means women comprised 40% of all new public board appointments. As this monthly trend continues, women now comprise 30% of board seats of companies in the S&P 500.

Our 2021 Women CEOs in America Report shows that women now comprise 8.2% of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies.

We continue to see diversification in the set of women appointed:

• 52, or 37%, of the newly appointed female Board members chose to self-disclose their race
• Asian/Pacific Islanders make up 46% of the 52 women of color with 24 women being appointed to public boards;
• 12 Black/African American women were appointed;
• six (6) Hispanic women joined board of public companies.

Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp., Alaska Air Group, Inc, and Coterra Energy Inc. are some of the companies that appointed this phenomenal group of diverse women to their boards

Of the 139 women appointed to the boards of public companies, 78 (56.1%) were first time board appointments. In October, Healthcare companies led the way in the appointment of women with women appointed to 26.6% of healthcare company boards followed by Industrial companies and Consumer companies. In the Consumer sector companies like Macy’s and Tilly’s are making strides to increase diversity on their boards.

Since we started publishing this monthly report in October 2020, companies are appointing more women and averaging over 40% each month to the board of public companies. In addition, there is progress being made to appoint women of color and LGBTQ+ community. Equilar and WBC are tracking and analyzing the growth and rotation of board seats and the expanding candidate pool. We will continue to track not only the women in terms of numbers, diversity and profile; but the companies and industries in which female board members are present and how many of the overall board seats are held by women.

Please, join us in celebrating, tracking, analyzing, and promoting women serving on corporate boards.