ity to align value creation with values. Tere is good empirical evidence that certain non-financial data can improve company performance. “Te financial and stock performance of companies that treat their employees well is better over the longer term. Companies are run by people and it is critical to attract that talent pool in a low-unemployment environment. “When we analyze companies, it’s that combination of fi-


nancial and non-financial data that is key to understanding the mosaic of how a company is built up and the value creation that can help it moving forward.” Danhof noted that “voting the proxy ballot is about value, not


values. Our job as a fiduciary is investment stewardship. When people deploy capital, they are giving away their rights to you, and you have to steward it like a shepherd watching a flock in the biblical sense. Tat’s the responsibility that we have as fiduciaries when we’re voting. “So we can’t push left-leaning values or right-leaning values. I


like to say our proxy voting is ‘aggressively apolitical’ in that sense, because a lot of the issues being relegated to the corporate proxy ballot are important social issues. But they belong in a political ballot box. Big business is stepping in and being asked to be the moral arbiters on these decisions, and I just don’t think that’s their place in society.”


Political and Marketing Noise Panelists addressed the issue of the politically divisive environ- ment that seems to overwhelm all types of communication. Bertinetti said, “Tere are two different conversations hap-


pening—political noise and marketing noise—plus a lot of misinformation about ESG. As a business, we need to be aware of it but we need to shut it out. It’s short-term. It doesn’t affect our long-term decision making, and we’re going to do what we think is the right thing to do for our business, our customers, our clients, and our communities to create long-term value. “It doesn’t really matter whether you want to use an acronym


or not; we’re still going to focus on the environment, social is- sues, and governance, because all of those things have led to our company growing stronger. “You need to decide, particularly if you’re in an investor


relations role, what non-financial factors are at the core of your business (which might be ESG) and focus only on those things.” D’Amore noted, “It is political. As investor relations profes-


sionals, you have an opportunity to highlight what non-financial data is material to your business and get away from that politics, which does not help anybody from a business perspective.


28 FA L L 2024 ■ IR UPDAT E


“ENGAGE MORE WITH THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY AND YOUR INDUSTRY. HELP THEM UNDERSTAND THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES AND THE KEY METRICS TO MEASURE PROGRESS."


- CHRIS BENJAMIN, PG&E


“My job is to figure out the signal from all the noise that’s going


on. We spend a lot of time internally figuring out key performance indicators and material risk and opportunity issues within specific companies, sectors and industries. “I think it’s fantastic that we have more data today. Te issue is it is not standardized. How do we compare one company to another? We deal with this regarding all types of financial data. For example, EBITDA, which is already by definition a non-GAAP number, and various companies have very different interpreta- tions of what constitutes EBITDA. We do the same thing around ESG data. Getting back to basics and the real material things can help you with messaging when you communicate with folks like me and others in the asset management industry.” Danhof offered this unique perspective: “I want to introduce


a new term in relation to proxy voting. Everyone has heard of greenwashing and green hushing. Now I’d like to talk about ‘green smuggling.’ Some of the large asset managers have clients that invest for ESG reasons—maybe 2% to 5% depending on the asset manager. And there have been a lot of ESG outflows from funds. So when this small percentage of clients wants asset managers to push for ESG and the managers use 100% of the assets under management to do it, that’s green smuggling. Te other 95% to 98% of clients presumably invested with those firms just to make money, not to politicize their capital. So that’s part of the problem.”


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