Power In The Boardroom

EXPANDING BLACK REPRESENTATION IN THE BOARDROOM AND THE C-SUITE REQUIRES ADVOCACY, STRATEGY, AND POSSIBLY, LEGISLATION. TO MEMBERS OF OUR B.E. REGISTRY OF CORPORATE DIRECTORS, HOWEVER, THE DETERMINING FACTOR COMES DOWN TO LEADERSHIP.

- Derek T. Dingle

FOR THE PAST SEVEN YEARS, BLACK ENTERPRISE HAS produced our annual Power in the Boardroom report, examining black representation and participation in corporate governance at the nation’s largest publicly traded corporations. As such, we have focused on companies that comprise the entire universe of the Standard & Poor’s 500 to gain a complete and comprehensive picture of corporate diversity and inclusion at the highest level.

Our raison d’être, for the most part, has been to ensure our audience members—like you—have a full understanding of the significance of blacks populating these governing bodies. As Arnold Donald, a B.E. Registry member who serves as president and CEO of Carnival Corp. & plc and corporate director of Bank of America, told BLACK ENTERPRISE: “The reason diversity matters is that if they’re shareholders or investors, you want the company to be successful over time. Diversity does matter when it comes to results. Secondly, communities thrive when businesses thrive. Any community that’s had a major business fail knows it affects everything—quality of life, education, arts, recreation, you name it. And then the third reason is one of social justice. You don’t want anybody being disenfranchised, feeling like they don’t have the opportunity.”

Opportunity is the byproduct of corporate policies and practices related to hiring, training, and promotion of employees; procurement of suppliers; and philanthropic giving to charities and causes. So if you care about jobs for African Americans, contracts for black-owned firms, or the allocation of dollars to support nonprofits in communities of color, then you must care about board diversity.