Companies say they want diversity. So why are Latinos left off corporate boards?

Cisco Systems, the multinational tech giant based in San Jose, has no Latino on its board of directors. So you have to ask, why don’t they want a Latino or Latina on their board?” An Exxon Mobil spokesperson declined to comment on the lack of Latinos on the company’s 13-member board, which has two Black directors, but said the board “believes diversity of thought, experience, and background is critical for successful governance.” Cisco and Intel spokespeople said their leaders value diversity but declined to elaborate on why their boards, which include Black and Asian directors, have no Latinos. “Corporate boards are where companies’ culture is established, how they make decisions and target resources,” said Assemblyman Chris Holden, a former Black caucus chair and the main author of a landmark California law in 2020 that mandated racial and ethnic diversity on company boards. A Netflix spokesperson said, “We’ve met with the Latino Voices for Boardroom Equity and look forward to continued discussions.” Over the last two years, the coalition has written to more than 580 chief executives of publicly traded California corporations declaring it “unacceptable” that “your company profits from Latino culture and Latino purchasing power, but your corporation has no Latinos on its board of directors.” The letters, offering to provide lists of “highly qualified” candidates, request meetings to discuss diversity plans “inclusive of Latinos.” But the tally is so far underwhelming: Just 3.7% of the directors of California’s largest 505 companies are Latino, according to a January survey by the data analytics firm ISS Corporate Solutions. Julie Daum, a board expert at Spencer Stuart, said companies particularly focused on recruiting Black directors after the George Floyd murder, and if fewer Latinos are appointed, “it’s not that they’re excluding people.” “The notion of diversity is that you have different points of view in the room, people who don’t all look alike,” Daum said.