Despite comprising of a smaller share of the U.S. population than African Americans or Hispanics, the most represented non-white U.S. CEOs were of an Asian background. They made up 55 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies in 2024. By comparison, 11 percent of CEOs at the time were African American. The rise of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) Investments in ESG have risen dramatically over last few years. In November 2023 there were approximately 480 billion U.S. dollars in ESG ETF assets worldwide, compared to 16 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. ESG measures were put in place to encourage companies to act responsibly, with the leading reason for ESG investing stated to be brand and reputation according to managers and asset owners. Gender diversity With the general acceptance of ESG in larger companies, there has still been a significant employment gap of women working in senior positions. For example, the share of women working as a partner or principal at EY, one of the largest accounting firms in the world, was just only 28 percent in 2023.

In 1995, zero percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 company were women. By 2023, this number had increased to 10.6 percent of CEO's, or 53 women. According to the source, Katharine Graham was the first woman CEO on the Fortunate 500 list in 1972.

Context

Workforce diversity is an increasingly salient issue, but it can be difficult to easily check how a specific company is performing. This dataset was created by Fortune to show what was discoverable by someone considering employment with one of the Fortune 500 firms and curious about their commitment to diversity and inclusion could find.

Content

This dataset contains the name of each firm, its rank in the 2017 Fortune 500, a link to its diversity and inclusion page or equal opportunity statement, and whether the company releases full, partial, or no data about the gender, race, and ethnicity of its employees. Additional detail is included where it was available. As there are over 200 fields in this dataset; please consult the data dictionary for details about specific features.

Acknowledgements

This dataset was assembled by Fortune.com data reporter Grace Donnelly. The details of her data preparation process can be found here.

Inspiration

Are the companies that release the most information more or less diverse than their peers? Are there any particular industries that stand out?