Registry made for potential female board members

SACRAMENTO — In an effort to get more women to serve on corporate boards and help corporations comply with a new California law, California State Treasurer Fiona Ma is launching a registry of potential female board members to share with corporations.

Treasurer Ma is inviting women experienced in banking, public finance, accounting, and executive-level decision-making to join the registry by sending their resumes to her office if they are interested in serving on a corporate board.

She intends to match the resumes to boards that correlate with a person’s skill set.

In 2018, California became the first state to require publicly held corporations to include women on their boards after then-Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill (SB 826, Jackson/Atkins) into law.

Treasurer Ma said that when she meets with the heads of these publicly held corporations, she wants to be able to connect them with qualified women who want to serve on their boards.

In California, about onequarter of public companies still have no women on their boards.

On July 1, the Secretary of State will publish a report on its web site documenting the number of domestic and foreign corporations whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California and who have at least one female director.

By 2021, the companies must have a minimum of two or three women, depending on the size of their boards.

Hundreds of companies will be affected by the law and those that fail to comply can be fined $100,000 for a first violation and $300,000 for a second.

Women interested in being included in the registry are encouraged to contact Xochilt Becerra at the State Treasurer’s Office. Her phone number is (916) 653-2995 and her email address is Xochilt.Becerra@treasurer.ca.gov.