noted that State Street Global Advisors, the $2.5 trillion investment firm behind Fearless Girl and the SHE Gender Diversity exchange-traded fund, has been voting against gender and diversity shareholder resolutions.Head of ESG Investments and Asset Stewardship at State Street Global Advisors, explains why.took State Street Global Advisors to task for our refusal to support several gender diversity shareholder proxy resolutions.
For instance, at one communications company, we voted for a shareholder proposal to require diverse director nominees for every seat on the board because, candidly, we were not confident that they were committed to the issue. The company heard us loud and clear - and in the following year added their first woman to the board and articulated their plans for building an even more diverse board.
None of this progress would have been possible without using both our voice—engaging directly with company management—as well as our vote. As important, they had launched a diversity website that publicly disclosed a robust set of metrics on workforce demographics and the strategies they were employing to improve diversity. For us, this was important because investors could make an informed decision for themselves.