Insight

Board diversity disclosure: The time is now

Annalisa Barrett and Susan Angele of the BLC review trends in board diversity disclosures at S&P 500 and Russell 3000 companies.

In today’s business environment, boards need directors with diverse backgrounds and perspec­tives. Transparency about board composition is key to building trust. Investors, employees, and other stakeholders are demanding increased disclosure on many aspects of board diversity to hold companies accountable, measure against their policies, and track progress over time.

Amid this environment, the KPMG Board Leadership Center (BLC) has been tracking public company board diversity disclosures since January 2021 through the KPMG Board Diversity Disclosure Benchmarking Tool, powered by ESGAUGE. We have found that:

  • While gender is almost always evident through the use of pronouns in director biographies, a large and increasing majority of companies now also disclose their board’s racial and ethnic diversity.
  • Disclosure of the presence of members in the boardroom who are LGBTQ is nascent and rising.
  • California-headquartered and Nasdaq-listed companies have more specific and higher disclo­sure rates in certain areas than other companies. 
Susan M. Angele

Susan M. Angele

Senior Advisor, KPMG Board Leadership Center, KPMG US

Annalisa Barrett

Annalisa Barrett

Senior Advisor, KPMG Board Leadership Center, KPMG US

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