Women in Mexican boards: Continued progress, but quite slow

This week, to commemorate the International Women’s Day, I want to share our updated annual analysis of gender equality in Mexican boards.

Continued progress, but quite slow

Gender equality in Mexican boards improved since last year, but very slowly. Companies in the S&P/BMV IPC index have continued to add women over the past few years, going from 7% of board participation in 2018 to 15% in 2023. Having said that, the increase over the past 12 months was quite meager (less than 1%). Furthermore, looking just at women who are independent members of these boards, the female participation is just 8% (vs. 7% in 2022).

With respect to new board members (those appointed in 2023), our survey shows a net increase of 7 women board members across the sample. This compares to a net increase of 9 female board members last year.

The company with the highest female participation is Walmex, with 40% representation (4% more than in 2022), and the companies with the highest independent female participation are ASUR (27%) and BMV (27%).

Mexico’s S&P/BMV IPC Constituents – Women on boards

Source: Company reports and websites, BMV, Miranda ESG

There are still 5 companies in this group that have no women on the board at all: ALFA, Cuervo, Grupo México, Peñoles, and Ollamani. This is the same number of all male boards that Mexico’s S&P/BMV IPC had last year (despite some changes in index membership), which suggests momentum might be lost in the largest and most liquid companies in the Mexican market. As for boards without independent women, the number is still quite high at 16 (or 44% of the group). This is slightly better than last year (18) and down from 26 in 2018.

Source: Company reports and websites, BMV, Miranda ESG

We hope momentum is not truly lost and that we see even more progress over 2024.

I hope you found this interesting. As usual, if there is anything we can help you with, please reach out.

Best,

Marimar

Miranda ESG

P.S. On methodology: For 2018 and 2019 our data comes from annual reports. For 2020 and onwards, data comes from annual reports (when already available) or from the latest available data on company websites. As companies differ in when and how they report board changes, in some cases the changes over years may not always be strictly comparable between companies. We identify woman board members by their first name and, when available, additional gender information provided. This may not always be accurate. We exclude alternative directors. We have rounded up decimal points to the nearest integer. Our goal is to give us a rough indication of board composition, and this is not a rigorous academic study. If you detect any inaccuracies, please let us know and we will correct them.

Appendix: More interesting data

Source: Company reports, Miranda ESG