California Boardroom Equity Report
The Impact of AB 979 on Latino Board Representation
Diversity on corporate boards has been proven to be good for business and, with Latinos numbering 39% of the California population, it makes sense for boardrooms to include Latinos, to offer insight into the New Mainstream Economy.
Unfortunately, LDCA’s research shows that in spite of the efforts of underrepresented bill AB 979, the overall percentage of Latinos on California corporate boards is a dismal 3% making Latinos the least represented group in California.
With just 21% of California boardrooms benefiting from the Latino perspective, companies are missing out on the insights needed to succeed with Latino consumers, the fastest growing demographic in America.
Our research reveals that if Latino board representation continued to grow at the current rate and the Latino population remained stagnant, it would take 45 years for Latinos to achieve representation on California boards equal to their current California population size.
Diversity and inclusion without Latino representation is incomplete and should not take nearly 50 years to achieve.
This report is a compilation of quarterly scorecards LCDA has published since October 2020 and is produced in partnership with the Latino Voices for Boardroom Equity initiative and Equilar. It provides a comprehensive analysis of board composition by gender and race/ethnic representation of directors serving on public company boards with principal executive offices in California as defined in the corporation's SEC 10-K form. All data in this report is from December 31, 2021, unless otherwise noted.
