50/50 Women on Boards just put out its latest report on who’s getting board seats, updated through the second quarter of this year. In Q2, women’s share of Russell 3000 board seats dropped to 29.2% from 30.1% this time last year. That’s the first annual decline in more than a decade.

This is the second notable finding on reversal of board diversity progress from the group this year. At the end of Q1, it determined that women’s board representation had fallen under 30% for the first time since hitting that milestone in 2024.

Now, the total number of board seats being filled is going up (new appointments rose 4.1%). And yet women got only 22.7% of these seats, down from 29.1% last year. Seat-by-seat, that’s a loss of 102 board positions since last year. Between 2024 and 2025, women gained 47 board seats.

The share of boards with zero women or only one woman inched upward from 40% to 42.4%. We continue to see the difference it makes when a woman is in charge as CEO or chair. Companies with women in those leadership positions were more likely to have gender-balanced boards.

As a reminder, research shows that having a diverse board improves the performance of all directors and enables boards to better tackle complex decisions.

Of board seats that have been held for 15 years or more, men occupy 88.9%. The organization presents that as an opportunity—a huge swath of board openings soon subject to tenure limits or retirement. But in order to take advantage of that opportunity, we need to right the ship. Right now, we’re seeing the impact of 2025’s attack on DEI—and the lessening of public or peer pressure to develop diverse boards. If companies can get it together by the time their directors start retiring, we have a chance of getting back on track.

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.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

New Fortune 500 CEO alert. General Mills just tapped its COO Dana McNabb to step in as CEO. As is so often the case when women get big CEO jobs, it's a turnaround at the company behind Cheerios and Pillsbury. General Mills is No. 227 on the Fortune 500. 

Lindsay Clancy's case is heading back toward court. The judge just scheduled a hearing in early November to set a date for a retrial. And her attorney seems to be shifting strategy, now arguing that prosecutors haven't presented enough evidence that Clancy killed her children (not only that she was not guilty by reason of insanity due to her extreme postpartum psychosis). 

A McKinsey partner just questioned if the glass cliff exists. Senior partner Chris Bradley wrote on LinkedIn that the glass cliff (where women are often given the biggest jobs only in a crisis) is "a very convenient way to always be a victim in the rain." McKinsey for years partnered with Lean In on its annual women in the workplace research and said in a statement that the exchange was "inconsistent with our views and the standards we expect." 

A glitch in an Electronic Arts video game showed female athletes in their underwear. EAFC27 was released this week, with early access last week. And early players of the game reported women's soccer players appearing in the game in black underwear, not their usual kits. EA says the glitch will be fixed in a title update. 

ON MY RADAR

How student journalists broke the Cornell Seven case The Cut

Erika Kirk doesn't really want to talk politics. So how's she going to lead Turning Point USA? Vanity Fair

What Xi’s grip on his wife’s hand tells us about power in China WSJ

PARTING WORDS

"I got some really good advice early on, which was play the game better."

— Poppi founder Allison Ellsworth on how men can be "bullies" at work and get away with it. She's on the latest episode of Fortune's Term Sheet podcast.