Duke Energy Corp. is tied for 18th nationwide among 45 electric and gas utilities ranked by Moody’s Investors Service for the percentage of women on their boards of directors.
Though Charlotte-based Duke (NYSE: DUK) is squarely in the top half of the utilities, its 31% total — four women directors out of 13 people on the board — is right at the national average.
Moody’s sees such diversity as a good thing.
“Although the data falls short of demonstrating direct causation, we consider the presence of women on boards — and the potential diversity of opinion they bring — as being supportive of good corporate governance,” Moody’s analyst Ana Rayes writes in a report issued Friday.
Duke is one of just eight large utility companies with a woman as CEO.
“The utilities with the most gender-diverse boards are ALLETE Inc. and Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc., with women occupying 55% and 50% of the irrespective board seats,” Rayes writes. “Companies led by women tend to have more female board members than those led by men.
“This holds true in the regulated utility sector,” Rayes continues. “ALLETE CEO Bethany Owen and HEI CEO Constance Lau are among eight female CEOs who lead companies in our cohort. The others are Lynn Good of Duke Energy Corporation, Lisa Grow of IDACORP Inc., Patricia Poppe of PG&E Corporation, Pat Vincent-Collawn of PNM Resources Inc., Maria Pope of Portland General Electric Company and Suzanne Sitherwood of Spire Inc.”
Among the companies headed by women, Duke ranks near the bottom of the list. Portland General Electric, with 29% women directors (four of 14 on the board), is the only one with a lower percentage. The eight woman-led utility companies averaged 39% female members on their boards.
The industry overall has seen an improvement in the number of women on boards in the last two years. Rayes says that, when Moody’s looked at gas and electric utilities in 2019, the national average was 25%.
Moody’s did not break that figure out by individual utilities in their 2019 report. Duke would have ranked well then also, as that year it had boosted the number of women on the board to the four at which it stands now. As now, that was 31% of the board and above the national average.
Duke does well among Southern utilities. Of six electric and gas utilities in the region, only AES Corp. (NYSE: AES) of Virginia and Entergy Corp. (NYSE: ETR) of Louisiana rank higher, with 40% and 36%, respectively, women on their boards.
ALLETE (NYSE: ALE) is based in Michigan. HEI (NYSE: HE) is
based in Hawaii. IDACORP (NYSE: IDA) is based in Idaho, PG&E (NYSE: PCG) in
California and PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) in New Mexico. Portland General (NYSE:
POR) is based in Oregon, and Spire (NYSE: SR) is based in Missouri.
