GM Board Poised to Become Mostly Female

Women will gain the majority on General Motors Co.’s board of directors for the first time ever in June, when two male directors retire and are not replaced, Bloomberg News points out.

The departures will shrink GM’s board to 11 members from 13. The candidates awaiting shareholder approval for those seats are CEO Mary Barra and five other women, along with five men.

The two exiting GM directors—former ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva and former chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen—have reached the carmaker’s mandatory retirement age of 72. GM says the board will temporarily retain its 72-year-old lead director, Tim Solso, during the “transformation.”

Barra, along with Best Buy Co. CEO Corie Barry, will likely be the only two female CEOs to head female-dominated boards of S&P 500 companies, according to Bloomberg. The news service notes that two other big U.S. companies—CBS and Viacom—also have female majorities on their boards but are run by male CEOs.