As US President Donald Trump intensifies his campaign against diversity programmes, appointments of women and racial minorities to S&P 500 boards have dropped to their lowest level in more than a decade, threatening to unwind years of gains in corporate boardroom diversity.
The shift is evident in new research by recruiting firms that study leadership diversity and Reuters interviews with more than a dozen boardroom recruiters, investors and human resource analysts.
It follows a series of Trump administration actions targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives known as DEI. Across corporate America, major investors who once pressed companies to diversify their boards have retreated, while legal challenges have upended DEI policies in recent years.
New data released yesterday by global executive search firm Spencer Stuart shows diversity in board appointments has steadily declined since peaking at 72 per cent in 2021 and 2022. Of the 364 new independent directors named to S&P 500 boards during the year ended April 30, 40pc were women or racial minorities, the lowest level since 2014, when 39pc of incoming directors were diverse, according to the leadership advisory firm.
On S&P 500 boards today, diverse directors hold 49.3pc of the seats, slightly down from a record of 49.6pc in 2024 and 2025, according to Spencer Stuart.
Recruiters and analysts interviewed by Reuters say those recent highs reflect years of appointments following the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. But while board diversity remains near a historic high, the lineup of new directors is becoming markedly less diverse, suggesting those gains may prove difficult to sustain if current hiring patterns persist and a larger share of new board seats goes to white men, the recruiters and industry analysts say.
George Anderson, co-leader of Spencer Stuart’s North American Board Advisory Practice, said boards are responding to changing legal, regulatory and political pressures. He said one driver of the decline in diverse appointments is a shift towards recruiting current and former CEOs, who accounted for 37pc of new directors this year, the highest level in 15 years. Companies see those executives as well suited to navigate complexity, but the CEO talent pool is less diverse, he said.
The shift in boardroom appointments coincides with a sharp decline in the number of companies publicly citing diversity as a factor in board recruitment.
The US Justice Department alleged IBM prioritised diverse candidates in hiring, tying bonuses to hitting certain demographic targets in employment decisions. IBM, which was the first US company to face action under Trump’s anti-DEI directive over its employment practices, did not return requests for comment.
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