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Three years after regulators required publicly traded companies to disclose detailed information about board diversity, there are more women on corporate boards than ever before. But advances in diversity have now slowed to a “glacial” pace, according to a new report.

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The latest report card prepared by the Conference Board of Canada for the Canadian Board Diversity Council shows that women represent 22.6 per cent of directors of the boards of FP500 companies.That’s more than double the 10.9 per cent representation of women in 2001, but the most recent figure reflects just a single percentage point increase from 2016.

There were also increases in the number of indigenous directors and people with disabilities sitting on corporate boards in 2017 from the previous year, according to self-reported data — though these were from a very low base. Just 1.1 per cent were indigenous persons, for example, up from 0.6 per cent in 2016. And there was less representation of both visible minorities and LGBTQ directors in 2017 compared with the year before.

“(T)he needle on diversity in boardrooms has not significantly moved,” declares the report.

The “pipeline” of women in executive positions has expanded at an even slower pace than gender-based board representation — 0.5 percentage points — with gender diversity among senior executives even lower than in the boardroom. Women occupied only 20 per cent of executive roles in 2017, according to the report card.