On September 30, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 979 into law, which requires that a publicly held domestic or foreign corporation whose principal executive office is located in California include one or more racially or otherwise diverse directors.
Pursuant to Assembly Bill 979, a publicly held corporations whose principal executive office is in California (a) should include a minimum of one director from an underrepresented community no later than the close of the 2021 calendar year; and (b) no later than the close of the 2022 calendar year, (1) if its number of directors is nine or more, the corporation should have a minimum of three directors from underrepresented communities, (2) if its number of directors is more than four but fewer than nine, the corporation should have a minimum of two directors from underrepresented communities, and (3) if its number of directors is four or fewer, the corporation should have a minimum of one director from an underrepresented community. A “director from an underrepresented community” means an individual who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self-identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.