Adjunct Professor Jared Landaw recently spoke with Bloomberg after the Fifth Circuit struck down NASDAQ’s rule to compel listed companies to have a more diverse board of directors.
In the article, Landaw said smart companies send a signal when they release information about board diversity. In more than 16 years at Barington Capital Group, including as chief operating officer, he found “many under-performing companies tend to have some form of homogeneousness in the board room that’s either contributed to the problem or prevents the board from self-correcting.” Bringing in directors of different demographic and life backgrounds helped address the problem.
“A majority of S&P 500 companies disclose their diversity statistics, regardless of whether they are traded on Nasdaq,” Landaw said. “I think that’s a reflection of what investors want and have come to expect.”