California passed a law in 2019 that stated boards of directors must have at least three women before the end of 2021, but Activision Blizzard failed to meet that deadline. And what's more, it's blaming the Microsoft acquisition despite having nearly three years of notice.
In Activision Blizzard's latest annual report (thanks, IGN), it acknowledges that it failed to meet the deadline with California's new law, having only two women on its board of ten as opposed to the required three. It stated that the reason for this is because of the Microsoft acquisition which closes in 2023.
"To meet this requirement and improve the diversity of our Board of Directors, the Company retained a search firm and began interviewing potential additional female directors in 2021," Activision Blizzard wrote. "However, since the Company's current directors would cease to continue to serve on our Board of Directors upon consummation of our proposed transaction with Microsoft, we were unable to conclude the process in 2021. We will be continuing our efforts to appoint a new female director."
The law was passed on January 1, 2019, and at the time, Activision Blizzard's board had Reveta Bowers and Elaine Wynn, the only two women. Wynn left the next year but was quickly replaced with Dawn Ostroff, but it has failed to hire any other women in that timeframe. California's law was a huge success for improving diversity at the highest levels of business, managing to bring in over 700 new board members within two years.
That's a huge increase from the previous number of only 208. Activision Blizzard's failure to follow this trend is coming under scrutiny, particularly because of the lawsuit against it from the state of California that alleges sexual misconduct, harassment, and workplace abuse.
CEO Bobby Kotick has come under fire with allegations of covering up or ignoring abuse in his company for years, while other senior executives such as EA's Laura Miele have stood up in solidarity with the workers, demanding that those in the industry who fail to meet "basic standards" should resign. Kotick has yet to do so and the lawsuit is stilll ongoing.