2009 Best in Class: Board Diversity - for profit

KeyCorp is a repeat winner in this category because the company continues to refine and apply its effective Board recruitment strategies. Over the past year, the KeyCorp Board expanded from 13 to 15 individuals. In the process, the percentage of minority Board members continued to be well above average. Three of KeyCorp’s 15 Board members (or 20 percent of the group) are minority individuals. This figure is higher than both the for-profit group average of 13 percent and the overall survey group average of 18.5 percent.

 

Key also has four female board members, which places their overall Board diversity representation at 46.7 percent (seven of 15). As the global economy diversifies, Key realizes that diversity in the boardroom leads to greater creativity, more vigorous deliberation, and more integrity of process. Key believes these outcomes foster principles of good corporate governance that help enhance shareholder value. Effective strategies include:

  • Key’s Director Recruitment Guidelines provide that there will be a preference for nominees that improve the diversity of the 15-member Board in terms of race, gender, religion and other characteristics. Diversity competency is a selection criterion for Board seats.
  • KeyCorp’s 2009 enterprise strategic priorities include “attract(ing) and retain(ing) a capable, diverse and engaged workforce”. Additional diversity goals and objectives are infused via diversity scorecards at all senior management levels, executive compensation tied to diversity goal achievement, and HR diversity human capital business plans for all lines of business.
  • The commitment of the KeyCorp Board to recruiting diverse Directors is publicly available, including via annual proxy statements.
  • KeyCorp’s diversity senior executives report on a semiannual basis to the Board on the state of diversity in the organization, which includes benchmarking efforts, line of business workforce metrics and organizational trend analysis.
  • The KeyCorp Board- and CEO-endorsed enterprise diversity statement is communicated to external audiences via the corporate Web site, www.Key.com/diversity, and also is communicated to employee audiences via KeyNet, their intranet platform, and KeyCorp Profile.


 “Diversity and inclusion are now embedded in our overall strategy and evidenced at the Board of Directors level, and also in our workplace, supplier base, and community outreach efforts. Today at Key, we also think more broadly about diversity, in terms of other areas such as faith, age, and work style. As this approach becomes further entrenched in our core values, our company will be better positioned to create relationships that help our businesses and communities grow and prosper.”

Henry L. Meyer III, c hairman and CEO, KeyCorp