Hull added that she’s joined the 2020 Women on Boards, a national campaign to raise the percentage of women on U.S. corporate boards to 20 percent or more by 2020. The organization announced in November that it had achieved its goal with 20.8 percent of board seats of publicly traded companies being held by women.
Hull said the campaign actually trains women to be more prepared to advance into corporate boardrooms, but she has a bit of an issue with how companies are being rewarded. “They’re giving prizes and awards to companies that achieve 20 percent and I’m not ready to give an award to a company for having 20 percent women leadership,” she expressed to IIW attendees. “I mean if you want to exceed 51 percent then come talk to me.”
Hull wants to push inclusion to its limits, she said, so her firm has proposed a 50 percent inclusion of women and people of color proxy voting guideline. “We need to see 50 percent inclusion or we’re not going to vote for the white males on the board.”
Although Hull admitted 50 percent inclusion was a “little bit extreme when it comes to the voting,” Jenko responded that she didn’t feel that the request was.
“It’s just equal,” she said. “I’m not going to invest in those companies unless I think they’re doing the right thing.”