2020 Inside the Public Company Boardroom

Inside the Public Company Boardroom leverages information from NACD partners to create a snapshot of what the boards of Russell 3000 Index companies look like in 2020, utilizing data from Main Data Group, a provider of executive-compensation benchmarking, and MyLogIQ, a provider of public company intelligence.

Key Findings

Incremental Progress Toward Gender Parity

• The gender balance on corporate boards is continuing to improve. Thirty-nine percent of incoming directors were women, while 61 percent of incoming directors were men. In light of the gender breakdown of departing directors—86 percent were men and 14 percent were women—this has made the overall Russell 3000 Index companies’ gender breakdown 79 percent men and 21 percent women.

• The data show that larger companies have more women on boards. Twenty-six percent of large-cap and 30 percent of mega-cap board seats are held by women, whereas women hold only 19 percent of small-cap and 22 percent of mid-cap board seats.

Boards and Committees Are Getting Larger

• Small- and mid-cap companies have largely driven a trend toward growth in the average board size, from 10 to 10.1, an addition of almost 500 board seats. Micro-/nano- and small-cap companies have an average board size below the overall mean, whereas mid- and large-/mega-cap companies have an average board size above the overall mean.

• While the average audit committee size has held steady at 3.9 directors since 2018, the compensation committee and the nominating and governance committee have both grown from 3.8 to 3.9. This may be because both the compensation committee and the nom/gov committee have taken on new activities as the board’s role has continued to expand, giving relief to audit committee agendas.

Shifting Skill Sets

• Despite the increasingly complex ways in which technology is currently reshaping business—and will continue to do so—there is not a significant difference in the average number of incoming directors with technology skills compared to departing directors.

• Departing directors are leaving behind a wide skill set. Sixty-four percent of departing directors have finance skills, 60 percent have management/strategic vision skills, and 35 percent have investor relations skills.