New research finds that Colorado increases the proportion of board positions held by women to 19 percent ass of June 30, 2020 even in the face of the economic downturn. This is an increase of nearly five percentage points over the same research conducted two years ago.
Over three-quarters of Colorado public companies now include one or more women on their board of directors, according to the most recent “Women on Colorado Boards: State of the State” analysis conducted by Boardbound by Women’s Leadership Foundation. This is a twenty-percentage point gain over the last two years and a reversal from the majority all-male boards seen as recently as 2014.
Read the full report here.
“For each of the last two years, Colorado public companies have added women to their boards at a pace faster than any of the previous 10 years,” said Jo Lynne Whiting, chair of Boardbound by Women’s Leadership Foundation. “We are thrilled to see the momentum growing because companies with women on their boards perform better. They have greater profitability, faster earnings growth and fewer financial restatements and controversies.”
“What’s particularly heartening is that this progress has continued even in the first half of 2020 when the state was confronting the economic downturn triggered by the coronavirus pandemic,” Whiting continued. “During the 2008-09 Great Recession, companies with greater gender board diversity fared better before, during and after the economic crisis than those with all-male boards. We encourage public companies to foster the growth of women on boards so Colorado companies experience similar results during this challenging economy.”
Other findings from the State of the State analysis show that while Colorado is making progress, the state still has room to improve. In 2020, Colorado companies that are part of the Russell 3000 lag one and half percentage points in board seats held by women, compared to the average for Russell 3000 companies nationwide. Moreover, Colorado-based companies on the Russell 3000 still have four percentage points more all-male boards than the national average.
“Another opportunity for improvement is building a robust and diverse pipeline of Colorado women executive officers,” Whiting added. “As of June 30, 2020, just 16 percent of named executive officer positions were held by women. We hope this analysis, showing that companies with women on their boards perform better, encourages companies to open both more executive officer positions and more board positions to women.”
Read the Denver Business Journal article about the study.