Governance team of the year (large cap) Prudential Financial
‘We have a small team and a big mandate,’ says Theresa Molloy, vice president for corporate governance at Prudential Financial. The team’s achievements include developing an effective and creative proxy statement, using feedback from Prudential’s engagement program to identify issues that are important to it and then ensuring the proxy addresses them.
For example, in 2022 the document highlighted on its inside cover the firm's climate change strategy. This included explaining Prudential’s board oversight of environmental strategy, how the firm’s chief investment officer takes a holistic approach to incorporating climate-related impacts into investment decisions and how Prudential’s risk-management framework ensures it is adhering to best practices for identifying, analyzing and reporting risk.
Among other things, the 2022 proxy statement spelled out steps the firm has taken toward nine commitments it has made on racial equity.
Prudential also produced three director videos to complement the 2022 proxy statement. ‘By releasing the videos, we gave all shareholders a chance to hear from directors,’ Molloy explains, noting that the company has a large retail investor base.
The videos include director Gilbert Casellas discussing the role of the board’s corporate governance and business ethics committee and the firm's environmental sustainability initiatives, and director Wendy Jones giving an overview of her background and the work of the audit committee.
‘We listen to our investors and, where we believe they have a reasonable request for disclosure, we’re happy to comply,’ Molloy says.
Prudential’s broad and extensive shareholder engagement program is led by Peggy Foran, chief governance officer, corporate secretary and senior vice president. The program features platforms such as the proxy statement, director videos and investor meetings. Engagement also includes a variety of stakeholders other than shareholders, such as unions, regulators, ESG ratings firms and industry thought-leaders.
The program provides means for shareholders to communicate with the board, too. These include an online executive compensation feedback form that investors can use to directly reach the compensation committee.
