Delivering Impact And Maximizing Returns Through Corporate Engagement: Past, Present And Future

Shareholder engagement has emerged as one of the most important mechanisms of delivering impact as well as an effective ESG risk management tool. Academic research shows that engagement potentially leads to superior financial returns. It has become a key strategy for many ESG practitioners. Expectations and directives around ESG engagements have been embedded in several global stewardship codes, such as the UK Stewardship code, Japan Stewardship Code and the EU Shareholders Rights Directive and Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, among others. And although such rules do not exist in the US, the SEC raises questions about engagements in its ESG exams.

Our next Lunch and Learn meeting will give an overview of the engagement process and discuss in particular:

• Importance of engagement in the ESG context, forms of engagement, strategies and different tools;
• Brief overview of academic research linking engagement to excess returns;
• The elements required to achieve this result –how do we define engagement “success”;
• The role of data and data science in driving success. The structural weaknesses of today’s data solutions and ways to address them. The role of data science;
• Future direction of ESG engagements: board nominations, shadow boards of directors; integrated engagements;
• The difference between engagement with public companies and private companies;
• Alterrnative platforms of engagement: including the stakeholders.

Presenters:

Bill Mills is the CEO and co-founder of KPX Global an ESG advisory service who specializes in advising investors and their agents on identifying the right data solutions for their business model and their corporate engagements. KPX and its associates apply advanced data science in the quantification of impact objectives and in the measurement of outcomes against those objectives. Bill previously launched the world’s first SRI hedge fund of funds with AIG as the sub-advisor as well as an ESG Global Bond Fund which PIMCO sub-advised.

Nawar Alsaadi is an investment professional with extensive experience with corporate engagement. He was until recently a senior PM at Canadian Post Pension Plan leading their ESG integration and stewardship in public markets. He has been involved with a number of high-profile activist campaigns with TSX and NYSE listed companies on issues of corporate governance and corporate strategy. Prior to working in the institutional space, Nawar ran his own activist fund, Semper Augustus Capital, which he managed from 2014 to 2018. Nawar holds, among others, an ESG investing certification from the CFA Institute in the UK,FSA Credential from SASB, and Sustainable Investments Professional Certification from Concordia University. Nawar is deeply passionate about ESG integration and engagement practices. He has led several ESG engagement workshops with the UN PRI. He is also the creator of the industry's first active ownership certification in collaboration with ED4S in Montreal.