Navigating the Complexity of Board Diversity and ESG
TDM provides the expertise, strategies, education, and customized support needed to optimize your board’s composition, ensuring diverse perspectives and a steadfast commitment to ESG principles for responsible and sustainable business practices.
Tailored Solutions to Establish Inclusive Board Culture
TDM simplifies the path to creating inclusive board culture while establishing ESG excellence. Our ACT approach (Assess | Coach | Train) will enable you to develop a roadmap to create cultural competence within your board and create accountability structures to ensure long-term organizational success.
Assessments identify your strengths and areas for improvement.
Our comprehensive assessment process dives deep into board culture to define areas of strength and areas that need attention. Through policy review, surveys, and demographic audits, we identify your baseline and can track progress over time to goals. Specific areas of assessment include:
- Your board recruitment pipeline
- Short & long-term goals for diversifying your board composition
- Onboarding process for new board members
- Ongoing education for board members
- Role of board committees in ESG governance and oversight
- Evaluating your current ESG reporting process, identifying areas for improvement
- Recommendations & action plans for improving ESG reporting and associated metrics
We are here to help, measuring progress quarterly to identify and address any roadblocks that may arise.
Coaching supports your board as they transform into more inclusive, high-impact leaders.
Individual & group coaching sessions are a safe space for board members to ask questions, seek guidance, and work through specific challenges. This ensures that they get the full benefit from all the new skills, information, insight they are gaining. Our board member coaching sessions are fully customized to your team, but typically include:
- The business case for DEI
- Inclusive leadership best practices
- Using language to foster an inclusive environment
- Strategies to diversity board composition including creating the talent pipeline
Learn more about TDM’s coaching services:
Board Training helps you gain board commitment to DEI.
DEI for Board Members Workshop: This workshop focuses on the distinct perspective and responsibilities of board members, providing them with a confidential space to delve into DEI specifics, seek expert advice, and understand how DEI can be a catalyst for organizational success.
Additional educational solutions available include online courses, microlearning, and certifications that cover DEI basics, advanced topics, and industry-specific nuances. Equip your board with the knowledge it needs to be DEI champions.
Great Organizations Rely on TDM
Proven Performance
Research shows that greater board diversity is associated with better business outcomes as a result of stronger decision making, faster problem solving, and increased innovation.
Greater board diversity also helps demonstrate your commitment to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), attract ESG investment, and ensure strong DEI strategies within your organization. In fact, the impetus for both ESG and DEI often comes from corporate boards. Energized by recognition of the link between social responsibility, brand reach, productivity, and profitability, savvy executives are implementing ESG and DEI strategies from the top down — starting with board diversity.
Board Diversity & ESG Resources
Advance ESG Excellence Through Board Diversity
We’re here to help.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is board diversity in corporate governance?
Demographic makeup of the executive board is just one metric that informs a company’s corporate governance rating. Other factors include executive compensation, ownership, and accounting practices. It’s important to note that board diversity refers to several dimensions of diversity, including race, ethnicity, gender identity, age, disability, veteran status, and more.
How can I increase board diversity?
Pipeline development — the creation of pathways to recruit and prepare diverse professionals for board service — is a valuable tool for improving board diversity. Focus on hiring someone who adds value to your organization through their unique perspective and skill set. In other words, you want to look for a good addition, not a good fit. Evaluate gaps in your current board structure — from business skills to ethnic, socioeconomic, and experiential diversity – and brainstorm ways to optimize the team with “good additions.”
What is an ESG score and why is it important?
An ESG score measures how a company is managing its environment, social, and governance risks well relative to peers in its industry. There are several ESG rating systems, but the most common – the MSCI – takes into account ten categories of risk: climate change, natural capital, pollution and waste, environmental opportunities, human capital, product liability, stakeholder opposition, social opportunities, corporate governance, and corporate behavior.
ESG scores help investors understand a company’s priorities and the long-term risks it could face in the future. A good ESG score can help businesses attract investors, build customer loyalty, improve financial performance, make operations sustainable and gain a competitive edge.