IN THE NEWS

In Latinos Hold ‘Staggeringly Low’ Number of Board Seats (temporary subscription required), Agenda Week reported on California-headquartered public companies that don’t have Latinos on their boards—citing LCDA's California Public Company Board research, and quoting LCDA Member, Maria Contreras-Sweet, who "laments that board opportunities haven’t changed that much for Latinas. They hold only 1.2% of the Fortune 1,000 boards seats in California." LCDA's Latino Board Tracker was used to identify the California-headquartered public companies that didn’t have a Latino on their board as of July 1 which are Apple, Alphabet, Facebook, Intel, and NVIDIA.

This past Thursday, August 13th, The California Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee held a hearing and voted to approve AB 979, a bill that would require CA headquartered public companies to add directors from underrepresented communities including African Americans, Asian, Latinos and Native Americans to their boards of directors. Kim Rivera, Strategy and Business Management President and Chief Legal Officer of HP Inc, served as an expert witness stating, "Everyone benefits when leadership represents the demographics of our diverse state and nation." In a letter, Julian Canete, President of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce endorsed AB 979 stating, "We are pleased to support AB 979 because California company boards of directors do not reflect the diversity of our great state. A recent study by the Latino Corporate Directors Association determined that 233 of the 662 public-company boards in California have no ethnic or racial representation."

As part of the 2020 LCDA Board Leaders Convening Reimagined, the Diverse Corporate Directors Coalition (DCDC) announced a comprehensive Call to Action for public boards in an effort to finally bring diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) to one of the least diverse environments in America—the corporate boardroom. The vision of the DCDC is a corporate America where boardrooms leverage the strength of America’s diversity as a competitive advantage. LCDA led the formation of The DCDC which includes Ascend Pinnacle, the Black Corporate Directors Conference (BCDC), Out Leadership’s Quorum, and the WomenCorporateDirectors Foundation (WCD). >Read The Call to Action

bluebird bio, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLUE) announced that it has appointed LCDA Executive Member, Denice Torres, to its Board of Directors. Hearty Congratulations on her first public corporate board appointment! >Read More

Vital Farms, Inc. (NasdaqGM:VITL) announced that it has appointed LCDA Executive Member, Gisel Ruiz, to its Board of Directors. Hearty Congratulations on her first public corporate board appointment as an independent director!

Harvest Sherwood Food Distributors recently named LCDA Executive Member, Elias Tavarez, as Chief Financial Officer. Congratulations on his new role!

LCDA Members, Adela Cepeda, Pedro DeJesus, Jose Luis Prado, Joe Dominguez, Emma Rodriguez-Ayala, Juan Ochoa, and Luis Nieto were named as part of the Negocios Now Who’s Who in Hispanic Chicago List. Big Congratulations to each of them on this honor! >Read More

Fund Directions: Profiles in Board Diversity recently featured LCDA Members, Adela Cepeda, Luis Ubiñas, and Liz Levy-Navarro. >Read More

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Good Read: President & CEO at HP, Enrique Lores, Why diverse corporate boardrooms drive equity, equality and performance. >Read More

Earlier this month, CalMatters cited LCDA research detailing that 86% of California-based public companies have no Latinos on their boards even though Latinos represent 39% of the state. >Read More

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