February 2021

LCDA YouTube | Latino Board Tracker | Member Spotlight | LCDA News

Greetings LCDA Familia,

This new year holds much opportunity for LCDA to further its mission and  increase the number of US Latinos on corporate boards. 

There is a strong pool of qualified Latinos for the boardroom. LCDA’s membership of experienced and board-qualified candidates grew by nearly 50% over the last year. This includes the addition of 45 Executive Members featured below, who are C-suite level executives and senior leaders aspiring to serve on corporate boards. LCDA conducts outreach year round and administers a selection cycle twice a year to consider interested leaders for Executive Membership. Eligible candidates must complete an interest form and meet industry and functional expertise criteria. The pool of applicants has been increasing over the last several years, and in the last 3 months alone, we’ve received our largest pool of applicants for the Q1 selection cycle. The next deadline to apply for LCDA Executive Membership is Friday, June 4.

We are proud that 16% of LCDA Executive Members have landed their first board seat, with the lion's share resulting from placements made in 2020. These new Directors represent a total of 22 board seats given that several of them have been placed on more than one board.  

We look forward to joining forces with you in creating opportunities and furthering our mission.

Stay safe and healthy,

In San Francisco Chronicle : New Hires to Corporate Boards in California Still Mostly White, Despite State Law.

Despite a new California law requiring diversity upon filling board positions, statewide recent hires were still mostly white. LCDA found that of the 607 board members hired in the last six months of 2020, slightly over a quarter were from nonwhite backgrounds. Only 14 Latinx people were hired onto boards during the six month period, about 2.5% of the state total hires.

In December 2020, the Nasdaq stock exchange proposed making the directors of the more than 3,000 companies listed there less overwhelmingly male and white. These reports show that mandating diversity does not mean all groups will see representation increase equally in the boardroom.

The legislation “Is not necessarily going to guarantee more Latino diversity,” said Aida Álvarez, a member of the boards of computer manufacturer HP Inc. and other tech companies. 

In Bloomberg Business: Boardrooms Need Diversity, Yet Latinos Are Fighting for Seats.

National Latino advocacy groups are calling attention to California companies without Latinos on the Board. Latinos have been left behind as one of the most underrepresented groups, particularly in California, among the most aggressive jurisdictions in trying to increase diversity in corporations. Hispanics make up almost 40% of the state’s population but hold just 2.1% of board seats at companies based there, according to data gathered by LCDA and corporate data provider, Equilar.

(Image Source: Bloomberg Business)

In Silicon Valley Business Journal: Latinos make up 25% of Santa Clara, San Mateo counties — but are rare on Silicon Valley's corporate boards.

While Latinos are the second-largest ethnic group nationwide, Hispanics and Latinos make up around one-fourth of the populations of these counties. The Latinx population in the United States also represents around $2.6 trillion in gross domestic product — more than the total gross domestic product of Brazil, Canada or Mexico.

Alphabet Inc., Intel Corp. and Facebook Inc. are among those with no Latinx board members. While many large tech firms have diversity initiatives and/or release annual reports on their workforce demographics, the tech sector falls behind many other industries in adding Latino board members.

Between July 1 and Oct. 31, 170 board appointments in California went to White board members while 41 went to Black board members. Asian board members were appointed to 20 board seats during that time frame, while Latino board members were named to just five seats.

86% of all California public firms have no Latinos or Latinas on their boards. LCDA and partner the Latino Voices for Boardroom Equity work towards reaching out to more companies and working together towards a commitment to increasing Latinos in the boardrooms.

LCDA's new data, tracking Latino CEOs leading S&P and Fortune 500 companies, was featured in Al Dia Business, ”Meet the 16 Hispanic CEOs of top S&P 500 Companies.” The latest research, provided by LCDA, highlights 16 Hispanic Chief Executive Officers (CEO) leading companies on the S&P 500. We're especially proud to spotlight #LCDAMembers: ADP CEO, Carlos Rodriguez; Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO, Enrique Lores; and Edison International CEO, Pedro Pizarro. 

Esther Aguilera, President and CEO, notes “Historically, Latinos have been overlooked for C-suite roles and especially for CEO positions. We celebrate a new milestone with 16 Latino CEOs leading S&P 500 companies, the most at one time,” she said. It’s been 40 years since a Hispanic was first made CEO of a publicly traded company.

The Latino Corporate Directors Association and Latino Voices for Boardroom Equity, released the Q4 2020 California Boardroom Equity Scorecard—a tool that gauges the impact of AB 979 by monitoring board composition by ethnicity and race. This information will allow Latinos and other underrepresented groups to measure the progress of their representation on California company boards. 

In partnership with Equilar, LCDA tracked 607 new board appointments made by California public companies between July 1 to December 31, 2020. Latinos gained only 14 board seats filled between July 1 to December 31, 2020, while the large majority of seats, 434, went to White/Caucasian directors, 74 seats went to Asian/Pacific Islander directors, and 73 seats went to Black/African American directors. 

The Q4 2020 Scorecard reveals that many California boards still lack diversity. At the end of Q4 2020, the boards of nearly one-third, 31.2%, of California public corporations were all White. Latinos hold only 2.3% of these board seats and 84.6% of California public company boards lack a Latino director, despite the fact that 39% of California’s population is Latino. 

LCDA submitted a comment letter in strong support of the Nasdaq Proposed Rule Change which would require Nasdaq-listed companies to have at least one director that self identifies as a variety of diverse genders, races, and sexual orientations with the alternative of giving an explanation as to why the company does not meet this requirement. The proposed change would require Nasdaq-listed companies to provide statistical information on the company's diversity on its board of directors.

LCDA is also supportive of the new disclosure requirements in Nasdaq's diversity proposal. With the current requirements it is difficult for investors to affirm if there are any Latinx board members. With improved disclosures and transparency, investors will be able to better gauge a company's commitment to the Latinx community and market.

The Latinx community is the fastest growing labor and consumer force in the United States, yet severely underrepresented among Fortune 500 and 1000 boards and often forgotten when assessing director diversity," LCDA Chair, Roel Campos added. "Nasdaq's Proposal will assist significantly in ensuring that diversity statistics are transparently disclosed and in providing extremely important information to inform all investors in their decision making.”

Congratulations to Milena Alberti-Perez on being named Chief Financial Officer at Getty Images. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Rick Gomez on being named Chief of Food and Beverage at Target Corporation. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Jose Ramon Gonzalez on being named Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Equitable Holdings. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Dr. Ellen Ochoa on receiving the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) 2020 Katherine and Marjorie Stinson Trophy. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Pedro Pierluisi on his election as Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Julio Ramirez on being named Chief Financial Officer at Kimball West. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Gisel Ruiz on being featured in Oxy.com, "The Women Reshaping the C-Suite" >READ MORE

Congratulations to Anelise Sacks on being named Chief Customer Officer at Analog Devices. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Maria S. Salinas, one of L.A.’s 34 Impact-Makers To Watch in 2021. >READ MORE

Congratulations to Carla Vernon on being named Vice President of Consumable Categories at Amazon.

“Security Beyond Cyber” | Silicon Valley Directors’ Exchange |Wednesday, February 24, 2021 | 9:00am - 10:00am Pacific Time | Featuring LCDA members Beatriz Infante and Dan Siciliano | REGISTER NOW

Submit Your Nominations for NACD Directorship 100 Awards 

NACD is accepting nominations for its annual NACD Directorship 100 Awards (view 2020 honorees here). 

The qualifications to be considered for the Directorship 100 Awards are simple - the director needs to be a sitting committee chair on a public, private, or non-profit board. All nominees will be vetted by NACD, an advisory committee of prior D100 honorees, NACD’s senior leadership team, and NACD’s own esteemed board of directors.

Help LCDA recognize Latina and Latino talent! If you are a LCDA member that meets the qualifications, we encourage you to self-nominate. Likewise, if you are interested in nominating a LCDA member or a diverse peer, complete the SurveyMonkey form below. Deadline to submit nominations is March 15, 2021. All nominations received via the SurveyMonkey form below will submitted on behalf of Latino Corporate Directors Association. 

COMPLETE SURVEYMONKEY FORM

To search for a LCDA member, visit LCDA’s Member Directory for a full list of members. 

For insightful news and information along with valuable tools and resources, visit the California Boardroom Equity Tracker, California Boardroom Equity Scorecard, Covid-19 Board Resources, Covid-19: ESG Game Changers, CA Public Company Boards, and Latino Voices for Boardroom Equity pages on our website.

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