e.l.f. Beauty this week released its “Not-So-White Paper” with data showing that diversity within boards of directors makes a positive impact on U.S. publicly traded companies.
"Boards with above-average diversity have been shown to reduce earnings risk and deliver higher return on equity," the report says. "Yet there are about 3x more white people than people of color, and about 3x more men than women, serving on America’s publicly traded boards of directors."
The paper is part of e.l.f.'s Change the Board Game initiative to "close the gap between the board, C-suite, and the community." It has set a 2027 goal to help double the rate at which women and people of color are added to the boards of directors of U.S.-based, publicly traded companies.
The project is based on the belief that e.l.f. Beauty's success in achieving 22 consecutive quarters of net sales growth can be credited in part to its own diverse board.
The initiative has released two ad campaigns, "Serving Facts with Billie Jean King" featuring the pioneering women's tennis champion, and "So Many Dicks," highlighting the fact that there are more men named Richard on publicly traded boards than entire groups of underrepresented people.
Citing data from FactSet, the makeup and skincare giant reports that out of about 4,100 publicly traded companies in the U.S., it's the only one with a board of directors that's 78 percent women and 44 percent diverse, reflecting its consumer and workforce base.
e.l.f. partnered with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the nation's largest historically Black college/ university, to publish the "Not-So-White Paper." Executives presented the report's findings at the Oct. 6-9 National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Summit in Washington, D.C.
In January, e.l.f. Beauty announced it is sponsoring board preparation training for 20 corporate director candidates through the NACD Accelerate Program, with plans to repeat the sponsorship in 2025.