Boards Engaging With NYC Pensions on Disclosure

More than 100 companies have responded to the New York City Pension Funds’ Board Accountability 2.0 campaign during the past two months. The pension funds sent letters signed by NYC comptroller Scott Stringer to 151 nominating and governance committee chairs in a bid to compel the boards to disclose individual directors’ skills, gender, ethnicity, age, tenure and — on a voluntary basis — sexual orientation.

The responses run the gamut from letters attempting to answer the request to companies’ scheduling engagements between representatives from the NYC funds and their board members. Pension fund staff are fully booked on engagement calls from November through January. Early this month, the number of companies that had responded to the initial September letter reached 102.

“We know that we will change disclosure, and hopefully as a result we’ll change practices,” says assistant comptroller Michael Garland. “A lot of this is about how boards refresh themselves and the ability of shareholders to tap into that process.”