Starbucks chair says lack of boardroom diversity is "corporate suicide"

Companies in the U.S. that fail to add people of color to their leadership are "committing corporate suicide," the chairwoman of Starbucks said this week.

Mellody Hobson said in a virtual talk at Maine's Bowdoin College that "it's time for us to start acting and doing something" to broaden the racial and gender composition of boards of directors that help guide big companies. Although the diversity of Fortune 500 boardrooms has increased in recent years, research shows that most boards remain overwhelmingly white and male.  "You can't be a leading company in the world and not have a diverse board or have a real agenda around diversity without at some point dying as an organization," Hobson said Wednesday. "Now it may take a while, but I do think it will be inevitable."