Texas has 267 companies on the Russell 3000 Index and only 23 percent of them have women on their boards of directors, according to the 50/50 Women on Boards Gender Diversity Index.
And only 13 of them are gender balance where they have 50 percent women and 50 percent men on their boards.
Those figures for 2021 are a 2.9 percent improvement over 2020 when Texas had 254 companies and 20.1 percent of them had women on their boards and none of them had gender balance, according to the Gender Diversity Index.
But still, there is a whole lot of room for improvement.
And that’s the mission of 50/50 Women on Boards, a national nonprofit organization aimed at driving the movement toward gender balance and diversity on corporate boards.
“The sustained increase and progress for women is positive, but there is work to be done to achieve gender balance and diversity on corporate boards,” Stephanie Sonnabend, CO-Founder and Chair of 50/50 Women on Boards, said in a news release. “After more than a decade of collaborating with corporations and action groups committed to advancing women to corporate boards, we know that what gets measured gets done. Thereby, we are furthering our commitment to diversity. In addition to women holding 50% of all corporate board seats, we call for women of color to hold at least 20% of ALL the corporate board seats.”
And the movement has come to Austin. The 50/50 Women on Boards organization just launched a chapter in the Austin area. The three board chairs of the Austin chapter are Laura Webb, Wendy Howell, and Michele Skelding.
The Austin chapter is hosting its first event on Nov. 12 at 11 a.m. The two-hour event includes a VIP panel session followed by a one-hour strategic networking session with a director coach.
