Exactly how many women are on tech companies' boards of directors? More specifically, how can females gain traction to join such boards?
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy — an entrepreneur who founded Joyus, an online video shopping website, and held positions at Amazon and Google — was curious. So last July, she created theBoardlist, an online talent database aimed at promoting diversity, according to Fortune. Companies can pay membership fees to access theBoardlist's database and find female candidates.
Since then, theBoardlist has directly placed three women on boards, and indirectly helped 30 women gain board positions, according to CNN Money. Approximately 120 searches have been made in theBoardlist's year of existence.
A new feature, dubbed theBoardlist Index, is making Ms. Singh Cassidy's goals even more transparent. The index, which will be updated each quarter, tracks how many women hold tech company board positions. As of June 30, the data is striking:
- Only 6.8 percent of private technology companies have females on their boards.
- Approximately 10.2 percent of unicorn companies — those valued at $1 billion or more — have female board members.
To combat these statistics, theBoardlist has also launched its Assisted Search feature, through which a company can pay $5,000 per search to receive more personalized assistance in its search for a female board member.
And what's Ms. Singh Cassidy's ultimate goal? Making changes. "I really feel like CEOs and boards and leadership teams are on the wrong side of history if they don't start adopting solutions," she said, according to Fortune.