More women than ever lead top Massachusetts companies, but most directors are white men

More women are in leadership positions in the top 100 Massachusetts companies than ever before, according to a new report from The Boston Club.

Women occupy almost 28% of board seats and 21% of executive officer positions in the top companies across sectors.

“This year, we can celebrate the significant number of ‘highest ever’ percentages and numbers," said Boston Club President Nancy Nager.

The Boston Club, a group committed to advancing women to leadership positions, has been collecting the data annually since 2003, when women occupied less than 10% of leadership positions.

This is also the first year the group included men of color in their data. The group found just 14.5% of board seats are occupied by people who are non-white, even though they make up 32.4% of Massachusetts residents, according to the 2020 Census.

Patricia Flynn, a professor of economics and management at Bentley University who co-authored the report, said every company in the survey had at least one woman on the board or executive suite. When she started writing the report 18 years ago, 35 of the top 100 companies just had men in those positions.

"We started at such a low base, that we still have a long way to go," Flynn said.

Flynn says more companies are under pressure from institutional investors to diversify their ranks, even though Massachusetts hasn't gone as far as California, which passed a law that requires diverse boards of directors.

Several bodies of research have suggested that diverse leadership is good for business. Flynn says that growing belief among the business community seems to be driving companies to hire more search firms to help them recruit diverse top talent.

"When you see a company that happens to be all white men running the board when their customers and employees are diverse," Flynn said. "You just have to wonder: what is going on in the boardroom?"

Life sciences had the highest share of women executive officers, followed by the services sector. The technology sector had the lowest percentage of women on boards and in executive officer positions.