Improving Diversity in School Governance

(From Associations Now) When it comes to boardroom diversity, recent reports suggest organizations still have a long way to go in their efforts to diversify leadership ranks. According to Deloitte's recent Women in the Boardroom report, only 17.6 percent of board seats are held by women, up from 12.2 percent in 2014, and women board chairs are even more rare — 4.4 percent in the current study, up 1 percentage point from 2014. Michele J. Hooper, an executive who’s served on multiple corporate boards, offered a plan to approach board diversity in a Q&A in the Deloitte report. Key elements of Hooper's plan:

• Look out two or three years to identify the skills your board will need along with a pipeline of potential candidates. 
• Spend time cultivating candidates, engaging with them and determining whether or not they might fit in. 
• Acknowledge that biases, both unconscious and conscious, complicate the process. Cultivate a proactive leadership from the board chair and nominating committee that will engage with members from underrepresented groups, then help them develop the capacities that will make them valuable board members.

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