In today’s edition: the resurgence of J. Crew, why Shari Redstone sold Paramount, and the return of IPOs—with one problem.
– Back in action? IPOs are back—but women are missing.
My colleague Lila MacLellan dug into the reopening of the public markets in a new piece for Fortune. Sixty-one companies filed IPO-related documents during the first two weeks of August in the U.S. Eighty-eight percent had either one or zero women on their boards, and 93% had one or zero women in their C-suites.
Damion Rallis, cofounder of board data firm Free Float Analytics, first uncovered the data, which he called the “Bro-PO” market. “We’ve given up our ideals. We’ve just given up,” he said.
Amid the rollback of DEI—and even years earlier, the reversals of board gender quota laws in California and elsewhere—there was a prevailing, optimistic point of view. Companies had already met the 30% board diversity benchmarks, so the work had been done. Laws might have been overturned, Goldman Sachs might have reversed its pledge to only take public companies that met those standards, but we didn’t need them anymore.
These findings show that that argument may have been naive. There’s always the potential for progress to backslide. And smaller tech companies reaching public markets right now may have never met those benchmarks to begin with.
As the next generation of businesses comes of age in the anti-DEI era, it will only get worse. Sorry to be a bummer! The top tier of public companies may stick to the past decade’s board diversity norms. But for the smaller players, that’s already been left in the past. Read Lila’s full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Back again. CEO Libby Wadle guided J. Crew through bankruptcy—now the company is "back in the conversation." But as the American brand becomes relevant again, it's not being prepared for a sale, Wadle says. Bloomberg
- Behind the deal. Why did Shari Redstone sell Paramount to Skydance? She "wanted to be free" of boardroom drama and the pressures of the streaming era, she said. It only got more difficult when the company became embroiled in Trump's 60 Minutes lawsuit against CBS and Redstone became a target for criticism from all sides. New York Times
- To the rescue. Not only are NPR and PBS both led by women—so is the Knight Foundation, which is racing to save PBS and NPR member stations in danger of closing after losing federal funding. Knight Foundation president Maribel Pérez Wadsworth is leading an effort to stabilize stations in jeopardy with a $50 million fund from donors. New York Times
- $$$. As CEO of GoodRx, Wendy Barnes is aiming to cut the costs of GLP-1 drugs in half. It's planning to offer these drugs at a cash price of $499 per month, and Barnes advocates that not all drugs need to flow through insurance. Fortune
ON MY RADAR
The rise of 'cute debt' The Atlantic
How to survive a scandal: Life lessons from Amanda Knox and Monica Lewinsky The Hollywood Reporter
Sarah Jessica Parker on And Just Like That... and Carrie's legacy New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"Every time that a phoenix is reborn, it has to burn itself to become new. I’ve kind of been that throughout my career."
—Tennis star Taylor Townsend, who played for years without an apparel brand sponsoring her. Now she's starting her own fashion label.
