Board Diversity: Top Tech Companies Without Black Corporate Directors

Apple. Amazon. Google. Facebook.

All know these iconic companies. They represent household names that owe a significant portion of market share and revenue growth to African American consumers. They also fail to have a single African American among their governance ranks. Four—Facebook emerged among the S&P 250 during the past year—are repeat offenders, having been on last year’s listing of “America’s Largest Public Companies Without Black Directors.”

In doing the research that led to the BLACK ENTERPRISE Registry of Corporate Directors, our listing of black board members from the 250 largest companies on the S&P 500, we discovered that 74 companies—29.6%—do not currently have a single black director in their boardrooms. Moreover, as a group, the number of companies without such representation didn’t budge from last year.

Among the worst have been tech companies. The reality is that these companies will not change their board compositions without pressure. For instance, Rainbow PUSH President Rev. Jesse Jackson told BLACK ENTERPRISE: “We found that [tech companies] had been fighting vigorously against EEO [Equal Employment Opportunity] reports because their records had been so horrendous, until they were embarrassed by the numbers.” The civil rights leader says that the findings “broke the ice” with most CEOs, but still none have confirmed that black board members were currently within their consideration set or nominating pipeline.

Bottom line: Diversity is not a priority. As one governance expert maintained, companies that fail to have board inclusion communicate to the world how little they value diversity on each rung of the corporate ladder.

An Adobe representative directed BLACK ENTERPRISE to their proxy statement, which currently reads:  “In carrying out its function to nominate candidates for election to our Board, the Nominating and Governance Committee considers the Board’s mix of skills, experience, character, commitment and diversity–diversity being broadly construed to mean a variety of opinions, perspectives and backgrounds, such as gender, race and ethnicity differences, as well as other differentiating characteristics, all in the context of the requirements and needs of our Board and Adobe at that point in time.”

Amazon.com, which has an estimated 30 million customers and grossed $77.8 billion in 2013, does not have a single black corporate director. Representatives from the company did not respond to BLACK ENTERPRISE‘s request for comments.

A representative from eBay replied

to Black Enterprise’s query with this statement: “Diversity is important at eBay Inc. and along with our peers we continue to focus on becoming a more diverse organization. eBay Inc. is committed to diversity at all levels of our business. We know that our business thrives when our employees are as diverse as our customers — diverse in backgrounds, perspectives, gender, race and sexual orientation. We continue to improve our efforts to attract and retain diverse talent and leadership across the organization.”

In response to our queries on why Apple does not have any African American directors, Apple’s spokesperson told BE that its board charter had been recently amended: “The nominating committee is committed to actively seeking out highly qualified women and individuals from minority groups to include in the pool from which board nominees are chosen.”
Facebook representatives did not return our calls for a statement. However, since the company’s IPO in May 2012, it has not added an African-American to its corporate board despite the fact that according to Pew Research, 76% of African-American online users access the platform. 

According to a Google spokesperson, Chairman Eric Schmidt issued the following statement when he told Rev. Jesse Jackson about the company’s commitment regarding board diversity: “While today we’re extremely happy with the diversity on our board, and we agree that when we have

additional board openings, I can assure you, we will look for every qualification and specifically people of color, additional female board members, etc. It is a core policy of Google to be diverse, and we take it very seriously.”

 

Hewlett-Packard, which hasn’t had a black director on its board since 2011, stated that it was finding new board members and that it does “work with a search firm with a lens to diversity.”

 

Although Intel did not directly address why its board does not include any black members, a representative referred to the policy found in the company’s proxy statement: “… the Board annually evaluates factors including independence, gender and ethnic diversity, and age. The [Nominating and Governance] committee and the Board review and assess the effectiveness of their practices for consideration of diversity in nominating director candidates. The Board then determines whether a nominee’s background, experience, personal characteristics, or skills will advance the Board’s goal of creating and sustaining a Board that can support and oversee the company’s complex activities.”

Intuit did not return any calls from BE regarding its board diversity practices or policies.

 

Despite Oracle’s key partnerships with organizations such as the United Negro College Fund and Technology Transfer Project, corporate representatives were unresponsive to requests for comments regarding the absence of African American representation on the company’s board.

The Priceline Group did not return any calls for comment despite the fact that Nielsen reports that black travel and tourism is a $40 billion industry, and African-American travelers who seek best prices, spend the most minutes on discount and travel information sites including the Priceline network.

SanDisk did not respond to BE‘s request for comments regarding its absence of black corporate directors.

Maynard Webb, Chairman of the Board at Yahoo! replied to our inquiry about the absence of African Americans on Yahoo’s board. “I believe that we continue to put diversity front and center. If you look at our board, 30% of them are women,” he says. “I do think there is work to be done to include the diverse nature of our population on the board and in the company, and we work with the company and with the board to try to do that. We are very interested in continuing our progress on this important topic.”