While the path to becoming a finance chief looks very different than it did just a few years ago, the field continues to be predominantly white men. According to a study by executive recruiting firm Cowen Partners, of the 264 CFOs hired by “Fortune 500 and notable companies” in the first half of 2022, 80% were white and 64% were male.

But with an overall push toward more diversity in the business world, universities and industry groups are focused on improving the pipeline of candidates for future CFO and finance sector roles, to make sure people from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups are included. And some have started to see the results of these multi-year concerted efforts.

According to recruiting firm Crist Kolder Associates’s annual Volatility Report for 2022, of 677 CFOs at 2022 Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies, 55% came from public universities and 45% came from private universities, compared to 53% public and 47% private in the 2021 report.

MBA + DEI. Stanford University produced 10 CFOs on the list, and at Stanford Graduate School of Business, 51% of US and permanent residents in its 2024 MBA class are people of color. Lori Nishiura Mackenzie, lead strategist for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Stanford Business, said her department focuses a lot on outreach, to try to make its programs more accessible to a broad range of people.

Stanford’s program is part of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, a nonprofit focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion in graduate business schools, and partners with organizations whose aim, Mackenzie said, “is to diversify the pool of folks that enter the MBA program who are from underrepresented historically marginalized groups.”

Read more here.—KL

While many public companies are chugging along attempting to quantify and collect their sustainability data for reporting purposes, it appears that private companies have neither identified the climate crisis “as a relevant matter nor acted on it,” according to a survey released in December by the Institute of Management Accountants.

In recent months, there has been heightened focus on gathering climate data, after the SEC unveiled a proposal that would require publicly listed companies to disclose their environmental risks for investors and wider stakeholders. Investors who have been calling for more data points on ESG—or environmental, social and governance—data, welcomed the SEC’s May 2022 proposal. Over the following months, however, some ESG critics have derided the proposal as an “unworkable,” reporting-heavy beast.

If IMA’s data set—clocking in at around 500 responses from accountants at private and public companies—is any indicator, accountants have much to do to develop “more mature management and accounting systems” that could identify climate risks and opportunities. The institute calls the current focus on publicly listed companies as overlooking the “real economy,” or private companies, a notable point as the vast majority of US companies are privately held.

Does public demand for net-zero carbon-emission plans and reporting obscure the real corporate climate progress? Perhaps. Public companies are perceived to be “larger and have more resources,” the accounting body wrote. Whereas, in reality, the majority of respondents to the IMA’s survey said they are not performing “any scenario or sensitivity analyses regarding climate-related risks.” And only a minority of responses say their boards pay regular attention to climate or ESG issues.

The green paper ends with an open-ended call for further inquisition and discussion into why companies, particularly private small and medium-sized businesses, have lagged behind public counterparts. Shari Littan, CPA, director of corporate reporting research and policy at IMA and co-author of the study, said there are “significant opportunities for businesses to shift from initial climate risk identification to the valuable activities of assessment, mitigation, and management.” Now, if only accountants and boards begin to believe that themselves.—KT

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: 3.5%. That’s how much online holiday shopping in 2022 increased, to the grand total of $211.7 billion, as consumers pounced on discounts amid inflation. (Reuters)

Quote: “You’re going to have the strong companies with a strong balance sheet that are going to take advantage of other weaknesses from other companies.”—Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial Group, at a CFO conference (CNBC)

Read: Wall Street is divided on how deep and long the widely anticipated recession will be. Here’s an incredibly thorough dive into the biggest institutions’ prognostications. (Bloomberg)