Pay Equity Disclosure 2023 is a hot topic for CorpGov.net thanks to assistance from Julia Cedarholm of Arjuna Capital, who contributed to their groundbreaking Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard. Arjuna’s efforts in this area and their reports since 2018 are impressive. Over the last seven years, 143 shareholder proposals requesting pay gap disclosures have been filed […]
Alarm.com Holdings 2022 annual meeting will be in-person only on June 2, 2022, at 9:00 am Eastern, 8281 Greensboro Drive, Suite 100, Tysons, Virginia. I recommend voting in advance, especially since many companies cut off voting as soon as proposals have been presented. To enhance corporate governance and long-term value, vote Against Clarke, Whall, auditor, pay; FOR #4 Proxy […]
Gary Gensler, a former financial regulator, and Goldman Sachs banker, now at MIT, is rumored Biden’s choice to head the SEC. As head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), he helped uncover interest-rate rigging on Libor, which underpins $300T in loans. Banks had to cough up $9B in fines. He pushed for transparency around derivative trading and […]
Illegal Marrone Bio proxy threatens not only their own shareholders but those of all companies. If Marrone Bio gets away with it, so can others. What can we do when a company violates the law and the SEC fails to act? We could go to court but that’s expensive. Instead, let’s mobilize. If enough cry foul, […]
#ReproReceipts Campaign by UltraViolet highlights hypocrisy and Calls for Accountability at AT&T, Coca Cola, Disney, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Uber
SB 826 requires specified California-based public corporations to include women directors on their board. Sidley Austin LLP put out a bulletin on the topic. To ensure it receives widespread circulation, I am reproducing its main text below, with one minor change to break up an absurdly long sentence. (more…)
By August 31, 2018, California could become the first state in the nation with gender quotas to mandate publicly held companies that base their operations in the state to have women on their boards. The legislation—SB 826—will require public companies headquartered in California to have a minimum of one female on its board of directors […]
First Hawaiian, Inc. (FHB) operates as a bank holding company for First Hawaiian Bank that provides a range of banking services to consumer and commercial customers in the United States. Although First Hawaiian is controlled by BNP Paribas (“BNPP”), it is still worth it for non-controlling shareholders to vote and express our wishes because of […]
The new Equilar GDI (Gender Diversity Index) found it will take nearly 40 years for Russell 3000 boards of directors to reach gender parity. If the current rate of growth remains the same, Russell 3000 boards would reach 50% male and 50% female representation in Q4 2055. Diversity Forum I urge readers 5/10 join CalPERS […]
3D Moves to Equilar. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) today announced the Diverse Director DataSource (3D) will now be available through the Equilar Diversity Network. The new partnership marks an exciting milestone for the 3D, a database the two pension funds jointly developed in 2011. 3D […]
#ICGN16, the annual meeting of the International Corporate Governance Network, was held in San Francisco, June 27-29. #ICGN16 was the hashtag for tweeting at the meeting, so check Twitter for additional posts to #ICGN16. This post is a continuation of a few rough notes from the conference. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of #ICGN16. (more…)
Index to Promote Gender Diversity: From the Press Release Index to Promote Gender Diversity announced by State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), the asset management business of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT). Check out the SPDR® SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (Ticker: SHE). SHE seeks to track the performance of the SSGA Gender Diversity Index, which comprises […]
Women in California companies continue to make slight progress. More of California’s largest 400 public companies public companies than ever have women chief executive officers (CEOs), and fewer have no women in their C-suites and boardrooms. However, the annual University of California, Davis, study shows women still hold just one in eight of the senior […]
President Obama selected Democrat Lisa Fairfax and Republican Hester Peirce to serve on the SEC. Fairfax, a law professor at George Washington University, surfaced after liberal groups pressured the White House not to hire a corporate lawyer who had previously worked to represent Wall Street. She has been active in promoting diversity on corporate boards, serving […]
The rewards of corporate leadership accrue faster for men. Not only do women hold just one in nine of the executive and board positions in California’s top 400 public companies, an annual University of California, Davis, study shows that that the women in top executive roles are not being promoted to the highest levels, and […]
Fenwick & West, one of the Silicon Valley’s premier law firms serving technology, venture capital and life sciences companies, released its Corporate Governance Survey and its adjunct Gender Diversity Survey. The surveys cover more than a decade of governance and leadership trends comparing companies in the S&P 100 and their relatively smaller and younger counterparts in the Silicon Valley […]
We last explored the topic of gender diversity on boards, in particular the underrepresentation of women on them, late in 2012, but much has happened globally on the subject since then. More companies have adopted regulation on the issue that range from “comply-or-explain” rules to quotas for the percentage of women on boards. A 2014 Grant Thornton […]
Mike Tyrrell is Editor of SRI-Connect – an online research marketplace for professional institutional investors, analysts & companies interested in sustainable development. He is keen to open up the site to corporate governance analysts & corporate governance research. Mike kindly gave permission to reproduce the interview on CorpGov.net. (more…)
I don’t follow corporate governance in India as much as I would like but this video explains some recent reforms too important to ignore. To exhort listed companies and their top executives to follow ‘good business practices’, regulator Sebi cleared new corporate governance norms that require them to justify CEO salaries, put in place whistle-blower […]
Directors&Boards is one of our “stakeholders.” No, that doesn’t mean they own part of us or that we own part of them and it doesn’t mean we always agree with each other. But they are included in our primary reference groups, those who contribute regularly to our “vocabulary of meaning.” The current edition begins to address […]
This slim but informative volume contains contributions from practitioners, policy-makers, principle-setters, advocacy groups and researchers on gender balance in the boardroom, the outcomes of the Norwegian quota law and its snowball effects in other countries. The book came out of a Think Tank organized in Oslo in March 2011. The Norwegian quota law demanded a […]
“Investing In Women – Increasing Opportunities For Funding Women” Presented by WITI (Women In Technology International) and NanoTecNexus. Presented at WITI San Diego Network meeting. (more…)
The march of women into the upper echelon seems inevitable. A few points from the introduction: 60% of recent university graduates have been women, 50% of those graduating with advanced degrees in law and medicine, 1/3 of those with MBAs. There will be labor and skill shortages in all developed countries over the next two […]
Yesterday, in Part I, I discussed the most recent UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders: A Census of Women Directors and Executive Officers and how it led me to invest disproportionately in firms with more women CEOs and NEOs. Just how are women different than men and what kind of changes can we expect or […]
Since starting this blog in 1995, I’ve pushed for greater diversity on boards and in named executive officers (NEOs). Progress has proceeded at a glacial pace, at least in the United States. For the ninth year, the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, in partnership with Watermark, published the annual UC Davis Study of California […]
The International Corporate Governance Network sent comments to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) and the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). I think they warrant widespread reading and adoption. What follows are highlights from the OSC letter. Gender diversity is a competitiveness issue for a company as a whole and a critical dimension of governance, both in […]
Time to Move Down the Food Chain With Proxy Proposals How does director voting look so far this year? Eighty percent of directors up for election received over 90% shareholder support. And nine of ten received at least 80% support. Directors of large-cap companies had the highest rate of support, averaging 95% approval. Small cap and […]
Abstract: How does gender-balance affect the working of boards of directors? I examine boards that have been required for two decades to be relatively gender-balanced: boards of business companies in which the Israeli government holds a substantial equity interest. I construct a novel database based on the detailed minutes of 402 board- and board-committee meetings […]
The 400 largest companies headquartered in California, representing almost $3 trillion in shareholder value, still resemble a “boys’ club” with women filling fewer than 10 percent of top executive jobs, a University of California, Davis, study has found. Incremental gains have been pitiful, in my opinion. The Graduate School of Management’s eighth annual UC Davis Study of California Women […]
A range of videos on the subject. The most recent EU proposal sets out a 40% “objective,” with unspecified sanctions against companies flouting the rules. The proposals would require companies to have clear, gender-neutral criteria for choosing non-executive directors and that if candidates are found to be equally qualified, then preference should be given to women. As […]
Despite an intense public debate and some voluntary initiatives at national and European level, the situation has not changed significantly in recent years: an incremental average increase of the number of women on boards of just 0.6 percentage points per year has been recorded since 2003. It is for this reason that the Commission is […]
Watch the Bloomberg Businessweek discussion and get an update on the EU debate on female representation in boardrooms. Interview of experts also includes insights on women added value in (more…)
The domain name bindersfullofwomen.com was snapped up less than two minutes after the instantly viral phrase left Mitt Romney’s mouth last Tuesday night. The winner was American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC. The group’s biggest funder is hedge fund billionaire George Soros, who made a $1 million donation earlier this year. (CNN, 10/17/2012) Will your CEO […]
The European commission is threatening radical measures to increase the number of women in boardrooms. Under proposed legislation, publicly listed companies in Europe will be fined if fewer than 40% of their non-exec board positions are occupied by women come 2020. (more…)
Maybe they’re showing us the way down under. A joint initiative of the Victorian Government and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (Company Directors) offers scholarships to women on the boards of Not for Profit organizations that receive State Government funding to undertake corporate governance training provided by Company Directors. (more…)