Boardroom Breakthrough: The Push for Disability Representation at the Top

This impact story is part of a series to celebrate the extraordinary pro bono projects undertaken by legal teams to support NGOs and social enterprises with the support of TrustLaw. All projects mentioned in this series are nominated for this year’s TrustLaw Awards. Find out more. 

More than 1 billion live with at least one disability, constituting 15% of the global population. Of these, 386 million are of working age. Despite this, most countries lack critical protections to safeguard the right of people with disabilities to work, with unemployment rates among people with disabilities as high as 80% in some countries.  

Shortcomings around the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace start at the top. Despite diversity at the board level having emerged as an important metric of corporate inclusion in recent years, the inclusion of people with disabilities on corporate boards has remained largely overlooked.  

Disability:IN is an NGO working to address this issue by building a stronger bridge between the business and disability communities. They do this by working with businesses to incorporate disability data as a vital component of diversity metrics and overall corporate social responsibility strategies.  

Global boardroom diversity 

An essential part of this work is modernising corporate board nomination and governance committee mechanisms to ensure companies proactively work to recruit board members with disabilities.  Disabilty:IN approached TrustLaw for support in this effort. They were connected with leading global law firm White & Case LLP, who contributed to the creation of a summary report examining diversity disclosure requirements in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Japan, and the United Kingdom.  

Building on this summary report, Disability:IN  launched its “Boards are IN” campaign to boost disability representation in boardrooms. Through this campaign, Disability:IN is working with businesses to help them adopt model language incorporating disability as an aspect of diversity when considering new Board candidates, disclose disability inclusion data to their investors and shareholders, utilise the Disability Equality Index to analyze and improve their corporate disability inclusion programs and policies, and proactively hire Board-level executives with disabilities. 

“When people with disabilities are included, everybody wins” 

As a result of their advocacy, Disability:IN has begun working with New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who has taken up disability inclusion in the workplace as a priority issue. Disability:IN is now a key partner to the Comptroller’s office, and their work together to encourage corporations to incorporate disability as a key diversity metric is ongoing.  

Speaking about the importance of disability inclusion and the “Boards are IN” campaign, former chair of the American Association of People with Disabilities and current co-chair of the Disability Equality Index Ted Kennedy, Jr. notes “Disability is a component of inclusion, and this is a blueprint for companies to modernize board-level representation in a way that will enhance corporate performance, benefit shareholders, and catalyze opportunities for people with disabilities.” In short, when people with disabilities are included, ever