TOP VENTURE FUNDS LAUNCH MULTICULTURAL LEADERSHIP COALITION
TO ACCELERATE DIVERSITY OF BOARD DIRECTORS AND ADVISORS
WITH 4 PLACEMENTS IN 1st MONTH
New York, NY - Top multicultural venture funds launch the Multicultural Leadership Coalition (the “MLC”) to accelerate the placements of leaders from underrepresented communities on the Board of Directors and Advisory Boards of privately-held and newly-listed companies with an extensive multicultural leadership network. MLC co-founders represent more than $1.5 billion in AUM and include Gold House, BBG Ventures, Gaingels, Golden Seeds, Harlem Capital, Halogen Ventures, Kapor Capital, MaC Venture Capital, Multitudes, SoGal Ventures, and VamosVentures.
The MLC announced their placement of 4 leaders already with 7 additional active searches at Gold House’s Multicultural Family Banquet during Advertising Week New York 2022 for 200 multicultural investors, founders, C-suite executives, and cultural leaders, in partnership with Advertising Week, Meta, Dentsu, SeeHer, Morgan Stanley, 3AF, Lowenstein Sandler, and the Working Assembly.
Boardrooms remain generally homogenous in the United States. In an extensive, multi-year study, Deloitte found that on Fortune 500 companies, 83% of board seats were held by White members. Other reports indicate that almost half of all boards are completely homogenous with regards to race/ethnicity. Among privately held companies, the need for diversity is just as stark. A study conducted by Crunchbase and Him For Her of the most heavily-funded private companies found that women hold only 14% of board seats and only 3% of all directors are women of color. The Board Diversity Action Alliance also discovered that less than 1% of board seats among recently-listed companies that have received funding from the nation’s top firms have been held by Black directors. Simultaneously, the benefits of increased diversity on boards are similarly clear. Diverse board members are more likely to bring experience with corporate sustainability and socially responsible investing, government, sales and marketing, and technology in the workplace—skills that are evermore important in a post-pandemic economy and expected by growing, younger workforces.
“Sustained, society-wide economic growth can only come with investment in, employment for, and the elevation of all multicultural communities. Accelerating these systemic improvements requires change at the top: in the boardrooms that decide the trajectory of companies,” a Gold House spokesperson said.
Over New York City’s favorite dim sum at Chinatown’s Golden Unicorn and multiculturally-owned champagne Armand de Brignac (by Shawn “Jay Z” Carter and LVMH), the Banquet featured Gold House’s signature interactive “give/get” game where attendees articulated their greatest need (“get”) while the 200-person mega room solved it; updates on Gold House Ventures’ early success including multiple markups; and remarks from community partners like 3AF.
Multicultural communities have a history of investing capital and talent in each other, recognizing that solutions to systemic biases against each are often universal. API communities, in particular, have a meaningful history of multicultural empowerment. In the early 1900s, Japanese and Mexican migrant workers formed one of America’s first multi-racial labor unions to successfully campaign for higher wages; later, Asian American activists played an integral role supporting Black movements and advocating for political change during the Civil Rights movement. Today, in the face of a complex and often-divided history, underrepresented communities are reckoning with the structural roots of their histories (e.g., the perpetuation of the “model minority” myth), but once again finding new ways for a more united path forward.
The MLC is a continuation of a series of growing endeavors by Gold House to unite multicultural communities through affirming creative and commercial opportunities. The commercial MLC joins creative unity, investment, and promotional efforts like the Reimagine Coalition announced at this year’s Golden Globes with the NAACP, IllumiNative, RespectAbility, and more; One Open that supports the opening successes of multicultural films for further greenlighting and cross-community education such as Just Mercy, In the Heights, Queen and Slim, and Marvel Studios’ Eternals; and Meta Gold Talks that explore the intricacies of cross-cultural solidarity with experts like Pulitzer Prize Winner Nikole Hannah-Jones and cross-cultural creative leaders like director Jon M. Chu.
For more information on the MLC, visit MulticulturalLeadershipCoalition.com.
About Gold House
Gold House is the leading changemaker organization and network of Asian and Pacific Islanders (API), fighting together for socioeconomic equity and belonging. Through a suite of innovative programs and platforms, Gold House unites, invests in, and promotes API creators and companies to change culture and commerce. To learn more, visit www.goldhouse.org or follow @GoldHouseCo on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
