Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. has added Post House Capital CEO Jacqueline Reese to its board of directors, the global sports, entertainment and content company announced on Wednesday.
The newly public company will now have three women on its seven-member board, or 43%. Rese joins Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, Endeavor executive chairman Patrick Whitesell, Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban, Silver Lake managing director Stephan Evans, Uncle Nearest Inc. CEO Fawn Weaver, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and former Xerox Corporation and VEON Ltd. chair and CEO Ursula Burns, who joined the board in July.
Endeavor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the gender makeup of its board. As Rese joins Weaver and Burns as the third woman board member, Endeavor has complied with California law. California Senate Bill 826 required all publicly traded companies headquartered in California to have at least one woman on their boards by the end of 2019 and the boards must have two to three women by the end of 2021, depending on the board’s size. (Boards of four or fewer members are required to have one member by Dec. 31, 2021; boards of five need two members, and boards of 6 or more need 3 women members to avoid fines.) The bill passed in September 2018.
California-based companies that don’t meet the deadlines will be fined $100,000 for every woman less than the required total on their board.
“We’re honored to welcome Jackie to our Board of Directors,” said Emanuel in a statement. “Her leadership across corporate finance and enterprise technology combined with her innate talent for driving innovation and cultivating culture will be incredibly valuable to Endeavor as we continue charting our future as a public company. “
Said Reses in the statement, “It’s great to join Endeavor’s board at this pivotal time. I’m looking forward to partnering with Endeavor’s leadership to develop strategies that fully leverage the power of its diverse portfolio.”
Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire, CEO of the nonprofit 50/50 Women on Boards organization, hailed Endeavor’s addition of Reses to its board but said the gender parity effort still has a long way to go. “50/50 Women on Boards is committed to seeing half of all board seats held by women and at least 20% of all board seats held by women of color. Based on our research, we know diversity, equity and inclusion are more evident in the workforce and on boards when a woman is CEO. However, only 5% of companies on the Russell 3000 Index have women CEOs, and only 6% of corporations have gender-balanced boards,” she told TheWrap.
Added Berkhemer-Credaire, “Corporations that take deliberate actions to achieve a diverse and inclusive workplace see the benefits in organizational culture, productivity and financial performance. While it is no longer unusual to see women in executive leadership positions and on corporate boards, we are not seeing enough women, especially women of color, to achieve gender-balanced and diverse boards.”
Prior to serving as CEO of Post House Capital, a private investment firm focused on consumer and financial technology, Reses served as executive chair of Square Financial Service and Capital Lead at Square Inc., a publicly traded financial services company. Before joining Square in 2015, Reses was chief development officer for Yahoo. While at Yahoo, she also served on the board of directors of China’s Alibaba Group. Before joining Yahoo in 2012, Reses led the U.S. media group at Apax Partners, a global private equity firm, for eleven years. She also spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions and the principal investment area.
Reses also serves on the boards of Affirm Holdings Inc., Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd. and TaskUs Inc., and ContextLogic Inc., for which she serves as executive chair. She is also chair of the Economic Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and sits on the Wharton School Board of Advisors. Reses received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.