As shareholder engagement moves from buzzword to best practice, boards are spending more time considering the best ways to communicate with their investors. Activism receives most of the media attention, but traditionally “passive” pension funds and institutional investors are becoming more vocal when it comes to social and environmental issues.
For example, State Street’s now-famous “Fearless Girl” statue, made to bring awareness to a lack of boardroom diversity, not only received a significant amount of attention when it was placed on Wall Street on International Women’s Day, but also won one of the advertising world’s most prestigious awards in Cannes this year. Likewise, BlackRock released its second quarter proxy voting report, which announced that the firm voted against several nominating and governance committee members in response to a lack of gender diversity.
The cover story in this issue of C-Suite focuses on another investor concern starting to bubble over—climate change and environmental sustainability. While shareholder proposals on this topic have been common for years, they are now receiving majority approval more and more often, influenced heavily by increasing support from institutional investors. We spoke with investors, board members, research organizations and shareholder advocacy groups to gauge their varying perspectives on this critical topic.
Our featured interviews in this edition of C-Suite highlight how boards evaluate and educate themselves to reach the highest levels of performance. Michael Montelongo, who has served on multiple boards, in top financial positions for the U.S. government and as a public company executive, spoke to us about the “programming requirements” for a high-performance board. Peter Gleason, President and CEO of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), identified opportunities directors should pursue to remain educated on the latest issues affecting the boardroom.
As always, please enjoy this issue and feel free to reach out to me directly with any feedback.
David Chun
CEO and Founder, Equilar
dchun@equilar.com