While senior leaders are adopting diversity and inclusion initiatives at greater rates within their organizations, those initiatives don’t always impact recruitment for their board and C-suite roles in meaningful ways, according to a recent report from BoardEx.

For example, a recent BoardEx survey found that 68 percent of boards of all sizes have “not enough” members, or no members at all from underrepresented or diverse groups; 71 percent of C-suite executive teams have “not enough” members or no members at all from these groups, either. This is despite the fact that, “an overwhelming majority of respondents are willing to broaden the requirements for background experience to attract more diverse talent” to join both boards and leadership teams.

As a result, these organizations are missing proven value in areas like “diversity of thought among teams, increasing productivity and retention, and creating cohesiveness among colleagues,” as one DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) senior executive said. She noted that these benefits should be “obvious,” but executive leaders are all too often the “strongest barriers to inclusive environments.”

BoardEx recently sat down with Nicolina Andall, chair, NED, and trustee at the Ministry of Justice in the U.K., and Val Lopez, partner at Hanold Associates, to discuss prioritizing both diversity and experience when recruiting board and executive members. “Leaders must take responsibility for diversity and inclusion [and] make sure that everyone can see diversity in [the] boardroom” and C-suite, Ms. Andall said. Diversity at these levels impacts recruitment at all levels of the organization as well: “People can only become what they can see,” said Ms. Andall.

Read the full report here