Diversity | Goldman Sachs snubs companies without a diverse Board

The multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs has announced that they won’t take a company public anymore unless it has at least one ‘diverse’ Board member – Forbes reported.

Effective from July 1, the firm will only underwrite IPOs – the process of offering shares of a private corporation to the public – in the US and Europe of private companies with one or more ‘diverse’ Board members.

It has been reported that over the last two years, more than 60 companies went public in both the US and Europe without a diverse Board. This target, which strives to correct a lack of diversity, is set to be raised to two diverse candidates in 2021.

Taking to LinkedIn, Goldman’s Sach’s Chairman and CEO, David M. Solomon wrote: “This decision is rooted first and foremost in our conviction that companies with diverse leadership perform better. Consider this: since 2016, US companies that have gone public with at least one female Board director outperformed companies that do not, one-year post-IPO.