- Some companies have achieved an increase of up to 40% in female participation on their board
- Gender inclusion is a social obligation of a modern public company
Mexico City, March 11th, 2021.- Mexican boards remain unacceptably dominated by men, even if a few companies have made some decent progress over the past couple of years in reducing the gender disparity. Based on Miranda ESG’s analysis of the boards of the 35 companies in the BMV’s IPC Index, women held 10% of the board seats as of 2020, up from 8% in 2019, and 7% in 2018. In contrast, women make up 28% of board members in the S&P500, according to Spencer Stuart’s latest survey. Furthermore, looking just at women who are independent members of these boards, the female participation decreases to a mere 4% (vs. 3% in 2019 and 2% in 2018).
A total of 10 of these 35 Mexican companies have no women on the board. These include some of the country’s most progressive and sophisticated companies (Grupo Alfa, Televisa, Grupo Mexico, Gruma, among others), including one of the five Mexican companies selected for Bloomberg’s gender equality index. This of course raises questions on the index methodology. By contrast, all 500 members of the S&P500 have at least one woman on the board.
Regarding new board members (those appointed in 2020), our analysis found a net increase of 7 women on the sample boards. In total, this compares to a net decrease of 5 board members in the entire sample. This suggests that some progress is being made. In particular, Santander stands out, which has gone from 0% of female participation in 2018, to 36% in 2019, and to 40% in 2020. IENOVA and GAP also showed material progress in 2020, going from 8% and 9% of participation of women on their boards in 2018, respectively, to 9% and 18% in 2019, and then to 25% and 27% in 2020. This led GAP to tie with Walmex for second place in the ranking of highest female participation on IPC boards (27% of board members at Walmex are women, down from 30% in 2019).
So, we ask ourselves, why does gender diversity matter on a board?
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For more information or to request an interview with Marimar Torreblanca, CEO of Miranda ESG, please contact:
MIRANDA MEDIA&PR
Ana Gabriela Jiménez Cubría
Sr. Analyst
Phone: +52.22.81.94.75.86