Introducing Out Leadership’s 4th annual LGBTQ+ Board Diversity Report, sponsored by Egon Zehnder and KPMG, a ground-breaking report that has driven fundamental change in board diversity policies around the world.
Nine years ago, Out Leadership began the LGBTQ+ board diversity conversation, when only two companies in the Fortune 500 included LGBTQ+ individuals in the definition of board diversity. In 2020, Out Leadership launched the first Visibility Counts study, the first mapping of LGBTQ+ board diversity policies in the world, sharing the board policies of the Fortune 500. Each year since, Out Leadership has added global exchanges, steadily increasing the number of companies. Alongside this data, Out Leadership has published board diversity policies for the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia & Hong Kong, with the goal of helping companies become more inclusive and, therefore, do better business.
With these tools and the visibility created by the data, LGBTQ+ inclusive board policies have sky-rocketed. Today, over 30% of Fortune 500 listed companies have LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and over 51% of Nasdaq listed companies are LGBTQ+ inclusive in their policies, which was directly impacted by the 2022 Nasdaq Diversity Rule, which Out Leadership helped shape, that required companies to have board diversity policies. From 2022-2023, the jump in inclusive board policies went from 113 to 1,871 companies.
In the 2024 report, Out Leadership has again expanded its scope, reporting on the board diversity policies of over 5,000 companies across the globe—including the Fortune 1000, Nasdaq, NYSE, S&P/ TSX Composite Index, FTSE, Euronext, ASX, HSI, and Nikkei. Despite the massive increase in inclusive policies, however, actual board seats held by LGBTQ+ leaders lag far behind.
- Only 45 corporate board of directors’ seats are held by LGBTQ+ individuals, out of a total of 5,449 board seats in Fortune 500 companies, accounting for less than 1%.
- 51% of Nasdaq-listed companies now have LGBTQ+ inclusive board policies, compared to 4.2% in 2022 – a record-shattering 1104% percent increase from 2022-2024.
- 31.6% of Fortune 1000 companies have LGBTQ+ inclusive board diversity policies. Only 74 out of 7,767 board seats are held by LGBTQ+ individuals (less than 1%) as of 2024
- Only 22.8% of NYSE 100 companies have LGBTQ+ board diversity policies set in place—less than half the number of Nasdaq companies. Unlike the Nasdaq, the NYSE does not have a board diversity rule for its listed companies.
- 14% of FTSE 350-listed companies now have LGBTQ+ inclusive board policies – a 69% increase in one year (29 in 2023, compared to 49 in 2024).
“Egon Zehnder is proud to be the founding global search partner of Out Leadership’s board diversity programme and to contribute to research that demonstrates gradual, yet substantive change in board representation can be made. At a time when some may be questioning the meaning of inclusivity, it’s more important than ever to have insights like these to give businesses a roadmap to identify and achieve tangible progress at the board level and beyond.” Karoline Vinsrygg, Head of UK Board Practice at Egon Zehnder.
“As we at the KPMG Board Leadership Center know well, the LGBTQ+ community offers a wealth of talent and should not be overlooked. While the report illustrates the progress that has been made, more is needed. KPMG is proud to stand with Out Leadership to continue to drive the conversation forward.” Susan Angele, Senior Adviser, KPMG Board Leadership Center
“While the adoption of LGBTQ+ inclusive corporate board policies continues to increase each year in the nine years since Out Leadership began focusing on board diversity, translating those policies into actual LGBTQ+ representation on boards has been disappointingly low. LGBTQ+ individuals continue to lag too far behind in actual representation on corporate boards in proportion to the number of policies,” said Todd Sears, Founder & CEO of Out Leadership.
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