Gaming supplier Everi Holdings Inc. has been named a “Winning ‘W’ Company” by 2020 Women on Boards (2020WOB) for achieving at least 20 percent women on its board of directors before the year 2020. Eileen Raney and Maureen Mullarkey have served on Everi’s board of directors beginning in 2016 and 2018, respectively.
Winning ‘W’ Companies are cited in the 2020WOB annual Gender Diversity Index, which tracks the numbers of corporate board seats held by women among the Russell 3000 Index. The Russell 3000 Index is comprised of the 3,000 largest U.S. traded stocks representing approximately 98 percent of all U.S. incorporated equity securities.
“We are proud 2020WOB is recognizing Everi’s commitment to board diversity and thankful for the invaluable strategy and counsel Eileen and Maureen provide our leadership team and board of directors,” said Everi Board Chairman Miles Kilburn. “We encourage more companies to embrace diversity and inclusion and continue to foster this culture not only at the board level, but at the company level as well.
“Our Women’s Leadership Initiative was put in place three years ago to do just that—to develop diverse leaders throughout the organization and to create opportunities and a path for advancement. Diverse talent and perspectives will enable us to continue to successfully execute on our key strategic initiatives to drive shareholder value, which must start at the top.”
“We applaud Everi’s board of directors for engaging the diverse opinions and perspectives of both genders on their board,” said Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire, CEO of 2020 Women on Boards. “Studies have shown that the varied perspectives of women are uniquely valuable to corporations and the challenges they face today, and can be key factors in profitability, productivity and workforce engagement.”
2020WOB is a nonprofit organization that monitors and publishes how many women are on companies’ boards, and ranks each company from ‘W’ for ‘Winning’ with at least 20 percent to ‘Z’ for Zero, meaning no women directors. Half the Russell 3000 companies still have only one woman director or none.
The 2018 nationwide statistic was 17.7 percent, a gain of 469 board seats for women, which is an improvement over the previous year at 16 percent. Of those, 295 were new seats created by expanding the board, not seats previously held by men. In total for 2018, approximately 25,250 board seats existed among the Russell 3000 companies with only 4,477 held by women.
