Recommended Citation
Jennifer S. Fan, Innovating Inclusion: The Impact of Women on Private Company Boards, 46 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 345 (2019), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/504
Publication Title
Florida State University Law Review
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Eight percent—that is the percentage of women who serve on the boards of directors of private high technology companies. Private companies, particularly high technology companies, have transformed citizens’ daily lives, while the unprecedented availability of private capital has allowed those companies to remain private longer. This rise, however, has also obscured some of the weaknesses of private companies, which are not subject to public disclosure and regulatory oversight: rampant sexual harassment, the lack of women leaders in technology companies, the relative absence of female venture capitalists, and the dearth of female board members, to name a few. Yet thus far, legal scholarship on gender diversity on corporate boards has focused almost exclusively on public companies, overlooking the stark lack of women in the vastly wealthy and influential sector of private capital. This Article documents the exclusion of women from the boards of nearly all the major private high technology companies currently influencing American business, and it explains why this male-only hegemony matters. It then offers a new paradigm, the innovation imperative, for creating a business culture in which people of all genders can make valued contributions. This Article analyzes two potential arenas for change: the legal and business realms. It concludes that a combination of legal and business reforms, such as adding inclusion riders to contracts and rethinking certain hiring and networking practices, would pave the way for progress in getting more women on boards.