Fortune 500 Companies With Most Gender-Diverse Boards

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The impact of gender diversity on corporate boards has been discussed for decades, and has recently garnered myriad headlines. Studies, like the Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS) report released Monday, show that stocks of large companies with women board members outperformed stocks from similar companies with all-male boards by 26% over the past six years.

It’s also widely known that despite the case for appointing women to boards, females hold only around 16% of board seats on Fortune 500 companies. That’s not great. However, the tide is turning. While too many companies still have all-male boards, several corporate behemoths have embraced the wisdom behind adding gender diversity to the boardroom.

With six female board members, cosmetics giant Avon (NYSE:AVP) has the most gender-diverse board of all 2012 Fortune 500 companies. It makes sense that 60% of the company’s directors are female because that’s the demographic Avon targets. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been enough to stem Avon’s troubles as its door-to-door sales model suffers in the e-commerce age.

Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY), WellPoint (NYSE:WLP), and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) also have strongly gender-diverse boards, with five female directors each.

According to stats from  2020 Women on Boards — a nonprofit organization advocating for 20%  female directors in America’s 1,000-largest companies by 2020 — most of America’s largest companies have one to three females on their boards. About 25 of the Fortune 500 currently have four female directors each. Here’s a look at the 10 largest.

Company Ticker No. of Female Board Members
Wal-Mart WMT 4
General Motors GM 4
General Electric GE 4
MetLife MET 4
PepsiCo PEP 4
Target TGT 4
Aetna AET 4
Publix Super Markets PUSH 4
Macy’s M 4
ManPower MAN 4

2020 Women on Boards has identified more than 200 companies in the U.S. as having no females at all on their board of directors. Find out which of the largest companies still have all-male boards.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2012/08/fortune-500-companies-with-most-gender-diverse-boards/.

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