One of the most prominent and publicized themes of the Business Roundtable's new governance guidelines is its significant emphasis on diversity in the board nominating process. This will add to the pressure on health system boards to increase their commitment to diversity in governance.

BRT's perspective that more diverse boards--including directors who represent the broad range of society--will strengthen board performance and contribute to the fundamental goal of creating long term value. To that end, BRT recommends that boards "develop a framework for identifying appropriately diverse candidates that allows the nominating/governance committee to consider women, minorities and others with diverse backgrounds as candidates for each open board seat."

In this regard, the BRT Principles take the diversity commitment to a degree beyond those of many other governance compilations, and track recent related comments of SEC Chairperson Mary Jo White. The BRT Principles do not "take sides" in the external debate on whether increased racial and gender diversity correlates to improved corporate financial performance. Rather, they support the broader concept that corporate decision-making, and talent acquisition, benefits from an environment that is supportive of diversity in backgrounds and perspectives.

Special Focus On Diversity

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