Last all-male board in the S&P 500 ends with addition of female Copart executive
The tenure of all-male boards among S&P 500 companies is now over.
Copart Inc. announced Tuesday that Diane M. Morefield, CyrusOne’s chief financial officer, has joined the company’s board of directors.
Copart, which describes itself as “a global leader in online vehicle auctions,” was the last company in the S&P 500 that did not have a female director on its board. The company also announced that Steve Fisher, eBay’s former chief technology officer, has joined its board. The appointments were effective on July 20.
Sketchers and TripAdvisor added women to its boards earlier this year, according to Bloomberg.
Adding women to boards has been a slow process. The media outlet reported that in 2000, “about 86 percent of S&P 500 companies had at least one women on their board.” The remaining approximate 14 percent of the other companies have added women to its boards since then.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “27 percent of all S&P 500 board seats are filled by women,” a 10 percent increase from 2012.
Changes came amid pressure from investors, including BlackRock Inc., which announced it would not hold proxy votes if the boards were all-male, according to The Journal.
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Last year, California became the first state to require publicly traded companies to include women on their boards of directors. The mandate required companies to have up to three female directors by the end of 2021, depending on the number of board seats.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.