Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Reese Witherspoon’s production company is getting into #BookTok, egg freezing is booming in the U.K., and the first Black woman to sit on a Coins2Day 500 board has a powerful legacy. Happy Wednesday!
– Board history. Do you know who the first Black woman to sit on the board of a large U.S. Public company was?
Until recently, most people relying on Google would have answered that question incorrectly. The search engine says it’s Dolores Wharton. In fact, the woman who held the distinction was Patricia Roberts Harris. Harris was the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg in the 1960s. In the 1970s, she served as secretary of housing and urban development; in the 1980s, she worked as U.S. Secretary of health and human services. In 1971, she was elected to the board of IBM.
But Harris’s history-making directorship had been buried in corporate records, causing the Internet to overlook her story.
The organization Black Women on Boards unearthed Harris’s piece of corporate history two years ago, and the discovery is now a focus of the new documentary OnBoard. My colleague Lila MacLellan, author of Coins2Day‘s Modern Board newsletter, writes about the film in a new Coins2Day piece.
Harris was followed by executives like Wharton, who joined the boards of Kellogg and Phillips Petroleum in 1976.
Their legacy is clear; today Black directors hold 12% of Coins2Day 500 board seats, and, of all demographic groups, Black women have experienced the largest increase in appointments since 2020. Organizations like Black Women on Boards, launched by Merline Saintil (on the boards of Rocket Lab and GitLab) and Robin Washington (a director at Salesforce, Alphabet, and Honeywell), have helped maintain that momentum.
OnBoard premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last week. For more about the documentary, read Lila’s full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Coins2Day’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Kinsey Crowley. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Back to work? Slack, led within Salesforce by CEO Lidiane Jones, is interested in rehiring employees it laid off earlier this year, Coins2Day's Kylie Robison reports. The workplace productivity platform hopes those workers will return to work on its generative A.I. Push. Coins2Day
- #BookTok biz. Candle Media, parent company to Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine, is striking a partnership with TikTok. (Former TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer now runs Candle.) Hello Sunshine aims to tap #BookTok content to develop new projects. The Hollywood Reporter
- Coalition progress. Estonia has become the first former Soviet country to legalize same-sex marriage. Prime Minister Kaja Kallas's coalition was a key part of ending opposition from the far right. Bloomberg
- Young and powerful. Mexico's president has appointed Luisa María Alcalde, 35, interior secretary, the highest-ranking domestic affairs role in the cabinet. As secretary of labor, she previously pushed through reforms to make union voting more fair and transparent. Associated Press
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Gameto has hired Teri Loxman as CFO. Nikia Bergan will be Equip's first president.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Freezing fertility. More women in the U.K. Are freezing their eggs, and younger women are making up a big chunk of new customers. Egg freezing cycles increased 64% from 2019 to 2021, according to a U.K. Regulator, and clinics say the average age of patients has dropped to 34, down from around 38. Doctors say widespread fertility testing may be driving the earlier action. Bloomberg
- Long range. More than 25% of the U.S. Workforce lives in places that have passed salary transparency laws, but some companies post unreasonably wide salary ranges on job listings. Companies operating in a tight labor market like childcare tend to post more precise salary ranges compared to sectors like tech with a labor surplus. New York Times
- No right age. A survey of more than 900 women executives showed that the overlap of age bias and gender bias puts women in a "no right age" double bind. Women under 40 are seen as lacking credentials; women over 60 are considered irrelevant; and women in between are at risk of being out for childrearing. Harvard Business Review
ON MY RADAR
Hey, it’s Sara Ramírez The Cut
Dreaming of a New Iran: Diaries from three young women New York Times Magazine
Jennifer Pahlka hasn’t given up on fixing the government The Information
Missy’s Midas touch Essence
PARTING WORDS
“I like people who aren’t afraid of emotions. I also feel there’s a real appetite for that right now. The younger generation especially can smell inauthenticity. It’s not as frowned upon anymore to have feelings.”
—Comedian Mae Martin, who has a new Netflix comedy special
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