PHOENIX (AP) — Mary Smith had a plan: She was going to serve as a member of a corporate board. She already had the resume. Smith is an attorney, and she had worked as the chief executive officer for the US Indian Health Service, a $6 billion-a-year operation.
“I think for most people, you’re not going to get a call out of the blue,” she said. “You have to put yourself out there so that people know that you want to be on a corporate Board because there are recruiters that recruit for corporate boards. But, the vast majority of board seats are still filled through networking.”
Smith’s planning was deliberate. She “very intentionally treated it like a full-time job.” That included learning about corporate governance and Board responsibilities and developing a “board bio” to highlight attributes boards are looking for, such as experience with regulatory agencies. She also hired coaches to sharpen her pitch.
“I didn’t want to look back and say, ‘Oh, I wish I had done X, Y or Z.’ ”
Smith has made a place for herself at a table where few Indigenous people have historically been invited.
There are some 4,000 companies traded on Wall Street through the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. Each of them has professional board members who are responsible for corporate governance. The number of American Indians and Alaska Natives represented on those boards is far less than one-tenth of 1%.
Smith, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, now serves on the Board for PTC Therapeutics Inc., a publicly traded global biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the “discovery, development and commercialization of clinically differentiated medicines that provide benefits to patients with rare disorders.”
She is paid a Board fee of $30,659, according to the company’s report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She also is awarded both options and stocks that depend on the company’s success and could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Smith says there is more to serving on a board than showing up to four meetings a year.
“That sounds like an easy gig, but, no, it’s actually a lot of work,” she said. There are documents that must be reviewed, a duty of care and loyalty. One poor decision could result in liability.
“So, yes, you have to be very thoughtful and exercise your fiduciary duties to the corporation.”
According to the corporate search firm Spencer Stuart and its annual report index, the total average compensation for a Board seat is $312,279. This average reflects actual director compensation, including the voluntary, and usually temporary, pay cuts some boards took during the height of the pandemic. More than three-quarters of boards provide stock grants to directors in addition to a fee.
Serving on a corporate Board is a good gig, yet there are a few prominent Indigenous Board members. Cherie Brandt serves on the Board of TD Bank in Toronto. She is both Mohawk from Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte and Ojibway from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Indian Reserve. She was appointed, last August. Kathy Hannan, Ho Chunk, serves on Otis Elevator and Annaly Capital Management.
A number of Indigenous people also serve on regional bank boards, utility companies, across the energy sector.
Overall the data reveals movement related to diversity. The 2021 US Spencer Stuart Board Index shows white directors fell slightly, in 2021, yet still account for eight of every 10 Board members, and six of the 10 are white men.
The index also found directors from historically underrepresented groups accounted for 72% of all new directors at S&P 500 companies, up from 59% in 2020. Female representation increased to 30% of all S&P 500 directors.
“Despite the record number of new directors from historically underrepresented groups, the overall representation of some demographic groups on S&P 500 Boards falls short of their representation in the US population,” Spencer Stuart reported. “For example, although 42% of the US population identifies as African American, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian/Native Alaskan or multiracial, those groups make up only 21% of S&P 500 directors.”
Source: avpress.com
