- Facebook went public with an all-male board, but nearly achieved gender parity last week when it added two women directors.
- The announcement came as companies face growing pressure from employees, customers, investors, and lawmakers to increase diversity within their ranks, especially among upper leadership.
- While the tech industry has moved slow so far, companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Airbnb, and HP are at least making some progress in the boardroom.
- Here are 13 tech companies that have added diverse directors since the beginning of 2019.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Facebook announced last week that it was adding a former McKinsey executive and Estée Lauder's CFO to its board, meaning 40% of the company's directors are now women. That's a significant change from 2012 when the social networking giant went public with an all-male board.
Thanks to a variety of factors, including the #MeToo movement, employee walkouts, and calls to action from the investor community, there's been a growing awareness about the lack of diversity across all industries, and especially within tech.
While many major tech companies, including Facebook, started releasing annual workforce diversity stats several years ago, those efforts alone have not yet led to substantial gains for underrepresented groups - particularly among upper leadership levels and within corporate boardrooms.
That may finally be changing, however. Last year, a California law went into effect requiring public companies based in the state to have at least one woman on their board by the end of 2019 (and more by the end of 2021 for boards with at least five people) - leading 126 companies to recruit 138 women to their boards.
By the end of 2019, only 4% of California-based companies still had all-male boards, down from 29% in July 2018, according to KPMG.
"I think we've reached a tipping point," said Shannon Gordon, CEO of theBoardlist, a company that helps connect women with public and private board opportunities, but she caveated that businesses still have a long way to go.
"There's certainly a strong pipeline out there, it's just a matter of companies being intentional about finding that talent," Gordon said.
Here are some of the companies within the tech industry that have found that talent - and added women to their boards in recent months: