Today in “affirmative action for public company boards” news…
In a move that does little to help either diversity or equality, NASDAQ is now pushing for SEC approval of a rule that would require public companies on its exchange to have at least one woman director and one “diverse” director – meaning a director that self-identifies as an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ. You know, like how Elizabeth Warren “self-identified” as Native American.
Oddly enough, there’s still no requirement that Board Members need to know how to read financial statements. But, we digress.
The exchange is also pushing for its more than 3,000 companies to be forced to report “data on board diversity” or “face consequences”, including having to publicly explain why they haven’t done so. Also known as public shaming.
“Under the proposal, all Nasdaq-listed companies will be required to publicly disclose board-level diversity statistics through Nasdaq’s proposed disclosure framework within one year of the SEC’s approval of the listing rule,” a NASDAQ PR reads.
“To give companies time to comply, they will need to publicly disclose their board diversity data within a year of S.E.C. approval, and have at least one woman or diverse director within two years. Bigger companies will be expected to have one of each type of director within four years,” DealBook reported this morning.
Even more frightening is the fact that NASDAQ wants to impose these rules on private companies as well. Adena Friedman, Nasdaq’s CEO, said: “The ideal outcome would be for the S.E.C. to take a role here. They could actually apply it to public and private companies because they oversee the private equity industry as well.”- READ MORE
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