April 2018 – Women and Investing

For the past several years Domini Impact Investments has been incubating a small portfolio that, in addition to other standards, applies a gender lens of the simplest nature. In order to qualify for stock purchase, the company must employ one female on the executive management team or have one female on the board of directors. The portfolio is unconstrained, multi-cap, global and opportunistic. Within this Wild West of a universe, this one standard has produced portfolio management challenges, personal challenges and frustration well beyond anything I had anticipated.

My path to finance has not been unusual; throughout my childhood, my parents ran an investment management and brokerage firm, so I grew up in the industry. Watching and admiring the dedication my parents put into their business and their careers showed me the value of entrepreneurship, independence, and of planting a garden and tending it. I’m grateful for the lessons in responsibility, hard work, and drive that have been ingrained in me, and early on it became obvious to me that finance could and should be a tool for good.

Investors are more interested in gender equality than they ever have been before, judging by things like proxy voting and shareholder engagement. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, recently has signaled in its proxy voting guidelines that all-male boards are not acceptable, and noted that boards should have at least two women on them. Pax World has been voting like that for years and we know our impact will be multiplied if other investors vote similarly. Another large investor, State Street, reportedly voted against directors of 400 companies whose boards were all-male