ASSOCIATED PRESSAmazon has appointed a black woman to its all-white board of directors after intensifying pressure to diversify the company’s leadership team. Rosalind Brewer, Starbucks’ chief operating officer, will be the fourth woman and the only person of color on Amazon’s now ten-person board. Last year BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, asked portfolio companies with fewer than two female board members to disclose their efforts to increase board diversity. Though board diversity has increased in recent years, minority women hold less than 5% of board seats in Fortune 500 companies and just under 6% in Fortune 100 companies, according to a 2018 Board Diversity Census, released last month by the Alliance for Board Diversity and consulting firm Deloitte. “You have to avoid tokenism and create inclusion.”Having just one or two board members from an underrepresented group can lead to a power imbalance, she says, and doesn’t create an equal playing field.

Source: Forbes February 05, 2019 21:11 UTC