Africa Leads the World on Women on Corporate Boards

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! President Trump has some interesting commentary while signing the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, Stacey Abrams will produce a TV show, and one continent has a big lead when it comes to women on boards. Have a wonderful Wednesday and a happy Thanksgiving to those in the U.S.—we’ll be back on Monday.

EVERYONE'S TALKING

- A continent to watch. Quick—take a guess: What continent do you think has the highest representation of women on corporate boards?

Answer: Africa, where one out of four board members are female, according to a new report from McKinsey Global Institute. What's more, women account for 22% of executive committees on the continent, beating the global average by 1 percentage point. They're also 25% of political representatives (the global average is 21%).

Of course, Africa is a big place—and its 54 nations are far from aligned in providing such opportunities to women. McKinsey attributes the high scores to the progress made in Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and South Africa. And this Bloomberg story on the report fairly points out that in addition to offering few financial or educational chances, some African nations can be quite dangerous places to be a woman.

But overlooking the continent's gender leadership in areas like boards and government would be a mistake. And consider where it could go from here: According to McKinsey, if all African countries matched South Africa’s level of parity by 2025, Africa's economy would grow by 10%—or $316 billion.

Kristen Bellstrom
@kayelbee
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com

Today's Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.

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- Mr. and Mrs. At the White House yesterday, President Trump signed the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, issuing 400,000 $1 silver coins for the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. While signing the bill, Trump also took credit: "Why wasn’t it done a long time ago? … Well, I guess the answer to that is because now I’m president, and we get things done." Meanwhile, First Lady Melania Trump was at a youth summit on the opioid crisis in Baltimore, where she was met with a minute of boos from the audience of middle and high school students.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: SoulCycle CEO Melanie Whelan has resigned; CNBC reports "both sides felt it was time for a leadership transition." Jill Wight of The Carlyle Group joins Morgan Stanley Capital Partners as a managing director. Splunk president of worldwide field operations Susan St. Ledger joins HashiCorp's board of directors. Iris Snyder of Reed's joined Whisps as CFO. Cisco Systems' Susie Wee joined the board of directors at Analog Devices, Inc.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

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- Always watch Never Tell. Multi-hyphenate alert: Stacey Abrams will produce a CBS drama based on her romance novel Never Tell. The politician has written eight novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery. The show will follow "a star linguistics professor with a complicated past who joins forces with a charismatic investigative journalist" in a missing persons case. The Hollywood Reporter