Apple shareholder puts forward board diversity proposal
Apple faces a shareholder vote on a proposal to increase diversity amongst executives and board members at the company’s annual meeting this month. The proposal has been put forward by Zevin Asset Management and individual shareholder Tony Maldonado, who made a similar proposal last year. Of Apple’s eight-member board, two individuals are female and one is a black man. Just three of the company’s 107 executives are black and two are Latino. Apple has called for shareholders to reject the proposal, claiming that the company is already working to improve diversity.

Jessica Guynn

USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple shareholders will be asked to vote on a proposal to increase the diversity of executives and board members at the company's annual meeting this month.

"Shareholders are concerned that low levels of diversity at the company’s senior management and board level, as well as painstakingly slow improvements, are a business risk," according to the proposal from Zevin Asset Management and individual investor Tony Maldonado, which cites USA TODAY analysis.

Maldonado promoted a similar measure last year. Boston-based Zevin Asset Management describes itself as a "pioneer in socially responsible investing."

Apple's eight-member board has two women and one black man. Three out of Apple's 107 executives are black and two are Latino, according to a 2016 filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Apple recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal, citing diversity initiatives the company is already taking.

"Our ongoing efforts to increase diversity are much broader than the 'accelerated recruitment policy' requested by this proposal, which is focused only on Apple’s senior management and board," the company said in its proxy filing. Apple also said it was had made "steady progress" over the last three years in attracting more women and under-represented minorities.

Silicon Valley tech companies, staffed mostly by white and Asian men, have struggled to bring aboard more women and underrepresented minorities.

Top universities turn out African-American and Latino computer science and computer engineering graduates at twice the rate that leading tech companies hire them, a USA TODAY analysis showed. It's not just computer science: Minorities are also sharply underrepresented in non-technical jobs such as sales and administration, with African Americans faring noticeably worse than Latinos, according to USA TODAY research.

That lack of diversity is magnified in Silicon Valley, according to a recent report from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Women, Hispanics and African Americans make up 30%, 6% and 3% of employees in the top 75 tech companies there, the report found. Those percentages were far lower than other private-sector employers in the area.

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