As part of MassTLC’s mission to accelerate innovation, growth, and the development of an inclusive tech ecosystem in Massachusetts, the Council is launching a new initiative aimed at bringing greater diversity to company boards. The initiative was highlighted by Jon Chesto on February 16th in a Boston Globe article entitled Mass. Tech Council Makes a Diversity Push for Boardrooms.
MassTLC’s Board-Ready Bootcamp is designed to improve the quality of board governance and composition at tech companies by providing a high-impact curriculum on board fundamentals, strategy and governance. Given the lack of diversity in the tech boardroom, the bootcamp is focused on preparing underrepresented tech leaders, including African Americans, Latinx, LGBTQIA, and women tech executives.
MassTLC has been benchmarking the low participation of women and minorities in our annual State of the Technology Economy report over the past few years. See press coverage:
- Report says diversity in tech will take generations (Boston Globe, 2017)
- Tech Is Booming In Mass., But Diversity And Hiring Remain A Challenge (WBUR, 2017)
- Few women are benefiting from surge in tech jobs (Boston Globe, 2016)
- There are 17 open jobs for every new tech college graduate in Massachusetts (com, 2016)
- tech sector flourishing with challenges ahead (Boston Globe, 2015)
Driven by a core belief that talent is distributed evenly in populations, but opportunities are not, we have actively championed solutions to this issue through speaking and events and have advocated on Beacon Hill and Capitol Hill for the need to bring talent off the sidelines and into a sector that pays twice the state average. Bringing women alone up to the level of men in tech would bring 78K people off the sidelines.
While women make up 34% of the tech sector, they comprise only 22% of tech occupations, and an even smaller 12% of tech board seats. African American and Latinx each comprise only about 3% of the tech sector and are almost nonexistent on tech boards.
From a business perspective, there is no question that diverse organizations make better decisions, have better financial outcomes, better reflect their customer base, and do better attracting and retaining talent. From a policy perspective, we saw just last fall that California became the first state in the nation to require public companies headquartered in the state to include female directors on their boards.
As board diversity increasingly becomes a business imperative, and as more states adopt board diversity policies, the demand for well-prepared board members from all backgrounds will continue to increase. MassTLC is in a unique position, given the scope of our membership and our executive-level relationships, to help increase diversity in the boardroom.
In addition to training on board fundamentals, Bootcamp participants will receive executive networking opportunities, a certification of completion, access to our Bootcamp alumni network, and inclusion in MassTLC alumni referral program.
Learn more about MassTLC’s Board-Ready Bootcamp.
