Fenwick’s gender diversity survey provides unique insight into women’s participation at the most senior levels of technology and life sciences public companies on the Fenwick – Bloomberg Law Silicon Valley 150 List (SV 150) and the large public companies of the Standard & Poor’s 100 Index (S&P 100). The report reviews public filings beginning in 1996 (the first year for which electronic filings with the SEC were broadly made in the EDGAR system) through the 2020 proxy season to analyze the gender makeup of boards, board leadership, board committees and executive management teams, in the two groups, with special comparisons showing how the 15 largest companies in the SV 150 by revenue (SV Top 15) fare. The SV Top 15 are the peers of the large public companies included in the S&P 100.

Our latest report indicates that company size continues to matter; the bigger the company, the more diverse its leadership. That is reflected in diversity numbers for the SV Top 15, which are generally similar to — and in some cases exceed — those of the S&P 100. While California’s 2018 law mandating specific gender diversity standards for companies based in the state seems to have moved the needle in the last two years, many SV 150 companies will need to add women at to their boards of directors to meet the law’s requirements in 2021...