While corporations have spent years loudly declaring the importance of diversity and inclusion in their leadership, board seat demographics have changed little over five years of active efforts, said the New York Times. Between 2015 and now, the percentage of members of underrepresented ethnic and racial groups on the boards of the 3,000 largest public companies in the world have gone from 10 percent to 12.5 percent, a 2.5 percent change. This slow progress has been despite numerous initiatives and programs that have sprung up in in the corporate world over the past few years aiming to promote diversity and inclusion.

The biggest improvements have been with regard to gender diversity: Women now make up 21 percent of directors, up from 13 percent in 2015, though this is far from parity with men. Black members of boards overall have only moved from 3 to 4 percent in this time period, and Black women in particular make up just 1.5 percent of board members.

The Times said what this indicates is that current measures need to go further, as five years of effort has effectively done little but to wring water from a stone.