Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. is adding Ursula Burns, former chair and CEO of Xerox Corp and VEON Ltd., to its Board of Directors, Endeavor announced on Monday.
The newly public company will now have two women on its board. The directors include Emanuel, Endeavor executive chairman Patrick Whitesell, Silver Lake Co-CEO Egon Durban, Silver Lake managing director Stephan Evans, Uncle Nearest Inc. Fawn Weaver and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“As a newly public company we are honored to welcome Ursula to our board of directors at such a transformational time,” said Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel in a statement. “Ursula is no stranger to leading global companies through change by embracing innovation and harnessing the power of technology — exactly the type of experience that will prove invaluable to us as we start this next chapter.”
Said Burns in the statement, “I’m thrilled to join Endeavor’s board at this exciting time. Endeavor has long been a leading force in sports and entertainment and a true innovator in the content and events space. I’m looking forward to working alongside the leadership team to build upon the company’s incredible momentum and help lay the foundation for many successful years to come.”
Although the number of women on Endeavor’s board is now 2 with Burns and Fawn Weaver, Endeavor must add one more woman to its board by the end of 2021 in order to be in compliance 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 1 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.