News Release

Garzon brings more than two decades of legal and governance expertise to support the Center’s initiatives

San Francisco, May 20, 2025 – Glass Lewis, one of the world’s leading providers of corporate governance data and insights and proxy voting services to institutional investors and companies, today announced its chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, Nichol Garzon, has been appointed to the Advisory Board of the Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Law School.

“I’m honored to join the Millstein Center’s Advisory Board and contribute to its vital mission of shaping modern governance practices,” said Nichol Garzon. “Throughout my career at Glass Lewis, I’ve seen firsthand how governance challenges and opportunities continue to evolve for companies and institutional investors alike. I look forward to bringing that perspective to the Center’s work and supporting its efforts to promote resilient, forward-looking practices.”

As Chief Legal Officer and SVP of Corporate Development at Glass Lewis, Garzon leads global legal, compliance, and regulatory affairs, and oversees corporate development initiatives worldwide. She joined the firm in 2004 as it began expanding its international research coverage. In her early tenure, Garzon served as a resident expert on corporate governance in Latin America and Continental Europe, drawing on her fluency in multiple languages and her expertise in corporate and securities law.

Erica Mitnick Klein, executive director of the Millstein Center, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Nichol to our advisory board. As a senior leader of Glass Lewis, Nichol brings to the Center invaluable experience and perspective that will enable us to continue cultivating cutting-edge research and programming to enhance corporate governance, sustainability, and performance.”

Building on Columbia Law School’s longstanding strength in corporate and securities law, the Millstein Center operates at the forefront of new thinking about how corporations are governed. The center engages with business leaders and board directors to create meaningful dialogue about the challenges companies face and serves as a focal point for the most innovative research into the policy solutions required to tackle those challenges.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

‍

Firm Now Offering Investors an End-to-End Solution to Advance Stewardship Strategies

San Francisco, Limerick, Stockholm: May 7, 2025 – Glass Lewis, one of the world’s leading providers of corporate governance data and insights and proxy voting services to institutional investors and companies, today announced it has completed its acquisition of Stockholm-based Esgaia, a leading technology platform specializing in investment stewardship workflows and data management.

With the transaction finalized, Glass Lewis is now able to offer a comprehensive stewardship solution that spans custom program design, active engagement, and tracking and reporting of activities and progress. Institutional investors seeking to strengthen engagement with portfolio companies, streamline processes, and simplify reporting will now be better equipped to meet increasing client expectations and evolving global requirements and standards.

“The addition of Esgaia advances our commitment to deliver a complete, purpose-built stewardship solution for institutional investors,” said Bob Mann, Chief Executive Officer of Glass Lewis. “Combining our governance expertise in research, engagement, and proxy voting with Esgaia’s innovative technology enables us to help clients across the globe fulfill their growing stewardship responsibilities.”

“Joining Glass Lewis allows us to scale our technology expertise and expand access to sophisticated investment stewardship tools,” said Anton Ljung, founder and CEO of Esgaia. “We’re excited to deliver smarter, more holistic solutions that help institutional investors navigate today’s dynamic stewardship environment more effectively.”

To provide insight into the benefits of the acquisition and an overview of the enhanced stewardship offering, Glass Lewis will host three webinars on Thursday, June 5 to accommodate participants across different regions. Register for the Europe/UK session here, North America session here, and Asia-Pacific session here.

In accordance with the terms of the agreement, the financial details of the transaction are not being disclosed.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

Technology Firm Empowers Investors Across Europe and Other Markets to Achieve Better Engagement Outcomes

San Francisco, Limerick, Stockholm: March 11, 2025 – Glass Lewis, one of the world’s leading providers of corporate governance data and insights and proxy voting services to institutional investors and companies, today announced it will acquire Stockholm-based Esgaia, a leading technology platform for institutional-level investment stewardship data and workflows.  The acquisition accelerates Glass Lewis’ strategy to more holistically serve clients in markets like Europe and Australia where the combination of informed proxy voting and issuer engagement is integral to investors’ stewardship efforts.

“The importance of investment stewardship is increasing in all markets, but nowhere is it more ingrained in the investment process than in Europe,” said Glass Lewis CEO Bob Mann. “We’re excited to leverage our acquisition of Esgaia to accelerate our integration of corporate governance research, proxy voting and issuer engagement data into a single platform, and by doing so, help institutional asset managers and pension funds be more effective stewards of capital.”

Glass Lewis offers engagement services to clients who want help engaging with issuers on certain topics and/or at various levels of desired response to shareholder interests.  To extend these services further and help clients track and report their engagement progress, Glass Lewis and Esgaia developed a successful three-year strategic partnership to provide access to Esgaia’s data management platform.

Founded in 2021, the Esgaia cloud-based platform helps institutional investors track, manage, and report on their issuer engagement and investment stewardship programs. Esgaia was created to address data and workflow inefficiencies, and evolving global standards that have created higher expectations on investors to better substantiate their engagements with results and outcomes tracked over time.

Until now, institutional investors have largely handled their engagement tracking and reporting through manual tasks, spreadsheets, or technology workarounds from disparate internal systems.

“Working collaboratively to bring clients’ voting and engagement data together into one platform, we can streamline clients’ workflows and simplify their reporting,” said Anton Ljung, founder and CEO of Esgaia.  “We are excited to join Glass Lewis and gain the scale needed to bring Esgaia’s purpose-built platform to a broader audience of institutional investors, helping them to drive better outcomes for their clients.”

The transaction is expected to close upon regulatory approval.  The deal terms are not being disclosed.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

About Esgaia

Esgaia is a technology company offering a product suite that helps investors manage data related to engagement with portfolio companies. The firm’s technology streamlines processes and workflows, enabling investors to engage with companies more efficiently. Ultimately, we aim to empower investors to drive better outcomes for their clients and society at large. The Esgaia team consists of former asset managers, investment professionals, engineers, and developers dedicated to helping improve and digitalize the engagement workflow.

December 4, 2024 London, U.K. – Proxymity, a global leader in digital investor communications, and Glass Lewis, a global leader in proxy voting and corporate governance insights, have announced a strategic partnership enabling institutional investors to carry out their end to end proxy voting process faster and more efficiently.

Glass Lewis clients can now leverage Proxymity’s proprietary technology and market connectivity for company meetings supported by the Proxymity platform. Benefits include instant meeting notifications, extended voting deadlines, and improved transparency throughout the meeting lifecycle, including true post-meeting vote confirmations.

Glass Lewis is well-recognized for delivering its proxy research and vote recommendations approximately 20 days in advance of company AGMs, providing clients more time to make vote decisions. With Proxymity’s extensive connectivity with issuers and leading custodian networks globally, investors using Glass Lewis can also benefit from improved voting deadlines, further expanding the amount of time investors have to cast their votes. The utilization of modern, real-time APIs, ensures investors can view and exercise accurate, up-to-the minute, voting entitlements. This represents another key step in bringing issuers and their shareholders closer together with real-time transparent communication and data.

“We are thrilled to partner with Glass Lewis to empower institutional investors with unmatched transparency and efficiency in their voting processes. This collaboration marks a significant step forward in our mission to streamline investor communications and ensure stakeholders have the tools they need for informed and timely execution of their shareholder rights,” said Dean Little, CEO of Proxymity.

“As the governance landscape continues to evolve, our partnership with Proxymity demonstrates our commitment to improving the timeliness, accuracy and transparency of the proxy voting process through the use of modern technologies and streamlined solutions. Together, we’re setting new standards for voting efficiency and transparency that benefit all stakeholders,” said Glass Lewis, Chief Operating Officer, John Wieck.

About Proxymity

Adopted by 87% of FTSE 100 companies, Proxymity connects the world’s ecosystem of issuers, intermediaries, and investors digitally in real-time, bringing unprecedented transparency, efficiency, and accuracy to traditional paper-based processes. Trusted by the world’s largest financial institutions, Proxymity’s ground-breaking technology has also been recognised industry-wide, with recent awards including GC Magazine’s “FinTech of the Year 2024,” “FinTech of the Year (Asia) 2023” and FSTech’s “Most Disruptive Technology in FinTech.”

Our solutions give public companies confidence that their AGM/EGM agendas are transmitted as “golden source” and provide institutional investors with the time to research and vote on corporate decisions, as well as actual digital confirmation that their votes have been received. The digital-native platform, built on highly scalable technology, provides full compliance with the latest regulations such as the Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II).

Proxymity promotes enhanced environmental, social, and governance (ESG) by improving communication between issuers and investors while making it easier for intermediaries to provide efficient, timely and compliant client service.

The company is backed by a global consortium of the industry’s most influential financial institutions, representing seven of the world’s top 10 Global Custodians managing over $200 trillion in assets under custody (BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Citi, Computershare, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Börse, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Mediant, State Street).

For more information, visit www.proxymity.io.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

Limerick, February 19, 2025 – Glass Lewis, a global leader in corporate governance insights and proxy voting execution, today announced its commitment to the Swiss Stewardship Code. As European institutional investors fulfill both mandatory and voluntary stewardship obligations, many are aligning their practices with frameworks like the Swiss Stewardship Code. Glass Lewis plays a key role in supporting institutional investors by providing expert guidance and customized engagement and proxy voting solutions.

Developed by the Asset Management Association Switzerland and Swiss Sustainable Finance, the Code aims to strengthen stewardship practices across the Swiss investment industry. By engaging with thousands of companies worldwide and offering diverse proxy voting policies, Glass Lewis facilitates meaningful dialogue and informed decision-making, helping its institutional clients effectively meet their stewardship responsibilities in alignment with the Code.

“As a longstanding participant in Switzerland’s investment stewardship ecosystem, Glass Lewis values its ongoing dialogue with Swiss public companies, investors, and policymakers,” said Chris Rushton, Senior Director of EMEA Research at Glass Lewis. “By endorsing the Code, we continue to advance corporate governance and responsible investment across the Swiss financial landscape, ensuring investors have access to informed insights and comprehensive stewardship solutions.”

The Code emphasizes strong governance, effective conflict management, company monitoring, and active ownership through engagement and voting—all of which align with Glass Lewis’ role as a trusted research, engagement, and voting services provider to institutional investors in Switzerland. The company offers customizable services, enabling clients to leverage its Stewardship team for specific engagement campaigns or participate in a structured engagement program. Additionally, Glass Lewis is well-known for its industry-leading governance research, proxy voting technology and broad range of voting policies that support investors’ unique stewardship priorities.

To view Glass Lewis’ Statement on the Swiss Stewardship Code, please visit here.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

Major policy updates focus on board oversight of artificial intelligence, shareholder meeting formats, and time-based awards

San Francisco, Limerick, November 14, 2024 – Glass Lewis, a global leader in corporate governance and proxy voting, released its 2025 Proxy Voting Policy Guidelines for the U.S., UK and Europe, including guidelines for shareholder proposals and ESG-related issues. The 2025 Voting Policy Guidelines will apply to shareholder meetings held after January 1, 2025. Glass Lewis will publish updates to its Voting Policy Guidelines for additional local markets and its Thematic Policy Guidelines by mid-December.

The Voting Policy Guidelines detail Glass Lewis’ approach to assessing ballot items at annual general meetings for the upcoming 2025 proxy season. To provide market stakeholders with additional regional context, Glass Lewis will hold a webinar for North America on December 11, and for Continental Europe and the UK on December 12. To register for the webinars, please visit here. Below are the key 2025 policy updates.

U.S.

• The guidelines for the U.S. include added or updated sections on board oversight of artificial intelligence, board responsiveness to shareholder proposals, and change-in-control provisions for executive compensation.
• Glass Lewis has also clarified its policy approach on reincorporation proposals and executive pay programs.

Continental Europe and UK

• The updated UK guidelines set increased expectations on board-level gender diversity for non-FTSE 350 main market companies, from a minimum of one to two gender diverse directors.
• For Europe, Glass Lewis has expanded its discussion on shareholder meeting formats to include closed-door shareholder meetings.
• For Europe and the UK, the guidelines offer more insight on the firm’s approach and expectations for when companies propose to move from performance-based to time-based awards in long-term incentive plans.

Shareholder Proposals and ESG-Related Issues (Global)

• The guidelines now include a policy on Glass Lewis’ approach to evaluating shareholder proposals pertaining to companies’ use of AI technologies.

Glass Lewis annually reviews and updates its Voting Policy Guidelines, drawing on valuable insights gleaned from client meetings, its Global Policy Survey and industry-leading engagement program, hosted events and industry conferences. Additionally, the firm’s global team of research experts conducts a rigorous review of regulatory changes, key market trends, regional best practices, and industry guidelines, integrating notable developments into its policies.

To view Glass Lewis’ 2025 Voting Policy Guidelines, please visit here.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

Over 480 investors, companies, and market stakeholders provided valuable insights on board oversight of AI, incentives, and shareholder meeting formats.

San Francisco, Limerick, November 11, 2024  Glass Lewis, a global leader in corporate governance and proxy voting, published the findings of its 2024 Global Policy Survey. The survey, which solicited input from all Glass Lewis clients and market stakeholders, seeks to align Glass Lewis Voting Policy Guidelines with prevailing market sentiment on timely governance, ESG, and stewardship matters ahead of the 2025 proxy season.
In total, Glass Lewis received 113 responses from investors and 374 responses from non-investors. The survey questions spanned a variety of areas, including, but not limited to board oversight of technology, the transatlantic pay gap, and climate transition oversight, among others. Below are notable findings from the survey.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance

• Despite the nascent stage of AI on board agendas, over three quarters of investors believe it is not too early to hold boards accountable for AI issues.
• Investors appear most interested in understanding how boards are overseeing AI governance and seeing comprehensive reporting on usage and ethical considerations.

Performance-Based vs. Time-Based Incentives

• Most investors and non-investors still see value in performance-based incentives, preferring these award structures to time-based awards.
• However, more than 85 percent of investors are willing to support the use of time-based awards under the right circumstances.

Shareholder Meeting Format

• While most investors (52 percent) favored in-person attendance at annual general meetings, the most popular response among non-investors (47 percent) was that shareholders should defer to the board on meeting format.

Gathering diverse market perspectives through our Global Policy Survey, extensive global engagement program and other strategic market initiatives, meaningfully strengthens our policy review process and guidelines, said Chris Rushton, senior director of research at Glass Lewis. We express our sincere gratitude to the more than 480 professionals who contributed their insights on these timely and important governance and stewardship topics.

In mid-November, Glass Lewis will release its 2025 Voting Policy Guidelines for key markets and its 2025 ESG Initiatives Policy Guidelines covering shareholder proposals. The company will publish its guidelines for additional local markets in mid-December. The 2025 Voting Policy Guidelines will apply to shareholder meetings held after January 1, 2025.

To access Glass Lewis 2024 Policy Survey, please visit here.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

Bob Mann to take the helm of leading corporate governance and proxy voting firm next month SAN FRANCISCO (April 24, 2024)‍

Glass Lewis, the global corporate governance and proxy voting advisor, today announced that Bob Mann, former Morningstar Sustainalytics President, will join the firm as its new chief executive officer next month. Mann brings with him a highly successful track record of operational excellence, accelerated growth and product innovation. As president and COO for more than 15 years, he led the ESG ratings firm Sustainalytics to year over year double digit growth, which culminated in its 2020 sale to Morningstar, Inc., the Chicago-based investment research and data company. Following that transaction, Mr. Mann subsequently became President of the Morningstar Sustainalytics business unit, integrating its expansive ESG research, ratings and data across the organization. I could not be more certain that Bob Mann is the right person at the right time to lead Glass Lewis to its next stage of strategic growth, said co-founder, Kevin Cameron. Bob has impressive operational experience and a keen understanding of the solutions needed to best serve asset managers, asset owners and corporate issuers in their investment and business decision-making. I'm excited to entrust Glass Lewis to Bob and also to support him as a member of our Board of Directors. Acquired by Toronto-based Peloton Capital Management (PCM) and its co-founder Stephen Smith in 2021, Glass Lewis has consistently been strengthening its position as one of only two global corporate governance and proxy voting advisors in the world. PCM managing partner Steve Faraone and partner Debra Dobson led the comprehensive search that culminated in Mr. Mann's CEO appointment. Mr. Faraone said, We are confident in Bobs ability to create value and believe his experience, vision and leadership style will serve Glass Lewis and its employees well. As a Director, I look forward to working closely with Bob in the months and years to come. I am thrilled to be joining this exceptional firm and team at a time when my past experience can be most valuable to Glass Lewis future direction, said Mr. Mann. I've been impressed by Pelotons supportive ownership and by the progress the company has made in a number of important areas. I'm eager to build upon Glass Lewis solid foundation and contribute to its continued success.

‍About Glass Lewis:

‍Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

‍About Peloton Capital Management:

‍Peloton Capital Management was founded in 2018 and is a private equity firm with patient capital and a long-term investment orientation. PCM has a proven team with deep expertise and value-creation capabilities in the financial, healthcare, consumer, and business services sectors and focuses on North American middle-market companies. PCM currently manages over C$1.25B in committed capital and has established successful partnerships with nine platform companies across Canada and the United States.

‍

Major policy updates focus on executive share ownership rules, clawback provisions, and board oversight of cyber and climate risk

San Francisco, Limerick, November 16, 2023  Glass Lewis, a global leader in corporate governance and proxy voting, released its 2024 Proxy Voting Policy Guidelines for the U.S., Canada, UK, Europe, Korea, including guidelines for shareholder proposals and ESG-related issues. The 2024 Voting Policy Guidelines will apply to shareholder meetings held after January 1, 2024. Glass Lewis will publish updates to its Voting Policy Guidelines for additional local markets and its Thematic Policy Guidelines by late December.

The Voting Policy Guidelines outline Glass Lewis approach to assessing ballot items at annual general meetings for the upcoming proxy season. To provide market stakeholders with helpful context, Glass Lewis will hold a webinar for North America on December 7, and for Continental Europe and the UK on December 12. To register for the webinars, please visit here. Key 2024 policy updates are outlined below:

U.S. and Canada

• The guidelines for the U.S. and Canada now include updated policy sections on cyber risk oversight, executive ownership guidelines, and the utility of clawback provisions.
• Glass Lewis has also enhanced its policy for the U.S. market on material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting, and board oversight of environmental and social issues.

Continental Europe and UK

• For Europe and the UK, Glass Lewis has expanded its policy on cyber risk oversight and noted that companies should adopt minimum share ownership requirements for the duration of an executive's tenure.
• The updated guidelines for the UK include clarification on remuneration at financial institutions.

Korea

• Glass Lewis assessment of gender diversity on Korean boards has shifted to a percentage-based approach to reflect new regulations and increasing investor focus on board diversity.
• The guidelines include an update on undisclosed financial statements to better align with practices and regulations.

Shareholder Proposals and ESG-Related Issues (Global)

• The guidelines include an update on management proposed ESG resolutions to reflect Glass Lewis approach to mandatory proposals in Spain and Switzerland asking shareholders to approve non-financial reporting.
• Glass Lewis will apply its policy on board accountability for climate-related issues to most large-cap companies and has updated its approach to shareholder proposals to consider engagement between companies and investors.

To enhance its annual global policy review process, Glass Lewis recently conducted a Policy Survey to better understand stakeholder sentiment on timely governance, ESG and stewardship matters. Results from the survey reaffirmed Glass Lewis intended approach on updates to its Guidelines in several areas, including cybersecurity, clawback provisions, and executive ownership guidelines, among others. To view Glass Lewis 2024 Voting Policy Guidelines, please visit here.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

Over 550 investors, companies, and other market stakeholders from around the world provided input on timely corporate governance, ESG and stewardship matters

San Francisco, Limerick, November 9, 2023  Glass Lewis, a global leader in corporate governance and proxy voting, released the findings from its first-ever Policy Survey, which was conducted in August and September 2023. All Glass Lewis clients  investor and corporate  were invited to participate. Through its survey  along with its industry-leading global engagement program and other critically important market initiatives - Glass Lewis seeks to better understand stakeholder sentiment on timely governance, ESG and stewardship matters in order to best align its Benchmark Voting Policy Guidelines to its clients expectations.

In total, Glass Lewis received 140 responses from institutional investors, and 417 responses from corporate issuers, corporate advisors, shareholder advocates and other stakeholders. The survey questions spanned a variety of areas, including executive compensation, ESG and shareholder proposals, capital structure/voting rights, and director commitments, among others. Below are notable findings from the survey.

• Investors view financial results, excluding total shareholder return (TSR), and incentive payouts relative to TSR as the most important factors when reviewing executive pay-for-performance alignment.
• Overwhelmingly, respondents indicated that companies should set greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets. However, there was a split on exactly which companies should set targets  and exactly which types of targets they should set.
• More than 40% of investors would vote against boards that use plurality voting for uncontested director elections, and over two-thirds view the practice as problematic.
• Most investors believe all board-level roles should be considered when assessing whether directors commitments are overstretched.

Amid rapidly evolving regulatory requirements, industry standards, and investor expectations, adding our Policy Survey as another valuable mechanism to gather market perspectives enables us to enhance our policy review process and provide more meaningful research analysis, said Eric Shostal, senior vice president of research and engagement at Glass Lewis. Were grateful to the more than 550 professionals that took the time to provide input on important governance matters.

Later this month, Glass Lewis will release its 2024 Benchmark Voting Policy Guidelines for the U.S., Canada, UK, and Continental Europe. In addition, the company will issue its 2024 ESG Initiatives Policy Guidelines, covering shareholder proposals. By mid-December, the company will publish its guidelines for additional local markets. The 2024 Benchmark Voting Policy Guidelines will apply to shareholder meetings held after January 1, 2024.

To access Glass Lewis 2023 Client Policy Survey, please visit here.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

‍

‍