What we do
Our Commitment to Diversity
Our beginnings
In 2010, after 20 years as a public company director, Beth Stewart founded Trewstar to create an effective process for – not merely connecting the pipeline of exceptional women to boards of corporations – but for ensuring the placement of candidates on those boards.
Her innovation?
Slates of all-female candidates, with a promise to open the search to men if the slate failed to meet expectations. It never did.
A seismic shift
- 2017 State Street Global Advisors promised to vote against governance chairs of all-male boards
- 2018 BlackRock followed suit
- 2018 California mandates a minimum of one female director
- 2020 Goldman Sachs requires a diverse director on companies looking to IPO
- 2020 California mandates at least 1 director from an underrepresented community
Trewstar today
2020 has marked a critical and exciting turning point in Trewstar’s journey. While we have always presented truly diverse slates of female candidates, we are being asked to focus on diversity beyond gender – including diverse men. Our innovation of 100% diverse slates has become a procedural norm, with potent results:
- 60% of candidates placed in 2020 were men and women of color
- 75% of candidates added to our network in the past 6 months were people of color
- 95% of our placements are women
How do we do it?
70% of clients specifically requested an African American or Latinx director in 2020
