What companies say about their boards
Disclosure regarding the composition of boards is widely seen as a key feature of efforts to increase director diversity. Proponents argue that divulging this information enables investors to make more informed decisions and stimulate change. Others express concern about publicly sharing certain information about members of the board.
In our research, almost half (48 percent) of respondents overall say their company does not disclose the racial composition of the board. More than a third (38 percent) say they do not disclose the age composition of the board, while around three quarters (78 percent) don’t release information on veteran status and 83 percent do not disclose sexual orientation information. Almost a fifth (18 percent) don’t disclose the gender composition of their board.
Fewer respondents in Europe (11 percent) say their company does not disclose information on gender than do those in Asia (13 percent) or North America (18 percent). Three fifths (60 percent) of respondents in Europe say their company does not disclose data on the racial composition of their board, compared with 40 percent of those in Asia and 43 percent of those in North America.
Fewer respondents at larger companies say they do not release gender data. All respondents at mega-cap companies say their company releases gender information, while just 7 percent of those at large-cap companies don’t release it, compared with 16 percent at mid-caps and 22 percent at small-cap companies.
Similarly, just 6 percent of respondents at mega-cap companies say they don’t release data on the racial composition of their board, compared with 29 percent of those at large-cap companies, 59 percent of those at mid-cap companies and 60 percent of those at small caps. A similar pattern is seen along company size lines when it comes to releasing age data. But there is greater consistency between cap sizes in terms of not releasing data on the sexual orientation and veteran status of boards.
Among companies that do reveal details, there is either a roughly even split between those that do so on an aggregate or individual basis, or a clear preference for doing so on an individual basis, depending on the category at issue. (Companies may issue composition data on both an aggregate and an individual basis.)
Globally, 26 percent of respondents say they issue aggregated data on the board’s racial composition and 23 percent do so on an individual basis. There is a similarly even split between those whose companies issue sexual orientation data on an aggregate basis (5 percent of all respondents) and those whose companies do so on an individual basis (also 5 percent).
On the other hand, half of all respondents’ companies release individualized data on the gender composition of their board, compared with just over a third (35 percent) that do so on an aggregate basis. More than half (53 percent) of all respondents say they release age composition data on an individual basis while just 7 percent do so on an aggregate basis.
Among respondents who say their company releases other types of information about the composition of their board, examples of these other types of information include:
