Photo caption: “State Street Global Advisers says its campaign to get more women onto boards has resulted in 152 companies adding a woman to their all-male lineups.” (Mark Lennihan/AP)
Last week, companies enthusiastically tied their brands to International Women’s Day in a repeated show of corporate feminism that has become an annual rite in the wake of the Lean In and #MeToo movements. Many of them seemed to come with controversy. Mattel unveiled 17 new Barbies fashioned after inspiring women from history, prompting questions from Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s family. McDonald’s turned some of its Golden Arches logos upside down, leading to a backlash.
But the most famous corporate tie-in to the global milestone may be State Street Global Adviser’s “Fearless Girl,” which turned one last week. Yet despite controversy in the aftermath of the defiant bronze little girl’s arrival in New York’s Financial District last year, the investment firm behind her said last week the campaign has had results, helping to pushed more than 150 companies to add women to their previously all-male boards.
It said Wednesday that of the 787 all-male boards in the United States, Britain and Australia that it identified and then pressured to add women, 152 did so. Another 34 said they plan to in the near term. And at 511 of the companies that did not add women, meanwhile, the firm voted against that board’s chair of the nominating committee, which selects new members.
The investment firm also said it plans to expand its campaign to Japan, Canada and Europe this year and push companies, particularly those in Europe where there are quotas on the number of women at the board level, to disclose their numbers of women in executive management jobs, too.
“Only when they’re aware of what the numbers are can they think about longer term goals,” said Lynn Blake, an executive vice president at State Street, noting that data on managers below the very highest ranks is usually hard for investors to get. For more on State Street’s efforts — and the controversy its campaign created along the way — read more here.