The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:30:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.11 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Vanguard’s Investor Stewardship – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Vanguard’s Investor Stewardship https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/09/21/vanguards-investor-stewardship/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=vanguards-investor-stewardship https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/09/21/vanguards-investor-stewardship/#comments Thu, 21 Sep 2017 13:26:49 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=101480?d=20170921092649EDT Posted by Ning Chiu, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, on Thursday, September 21, 2017
Editor's Note:

Ning Chiu is counsel at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. This post is based on a Davis Polk publication by Ms. Chiu. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes The Agency Problems of Institutional Investors, by Lucian Bebchuk, Alma Cohen, and Scott Hirst.

Vanguard cast more than 171,000 individual votes at nearly 13,000 companies in 68 countries for the 12-month period ending June 30th, making the firm one of the most influential investors in public companies. Its recent Investor Stewardship Report and letter to CEOs highlights two key governance priorities.

Engagement is a vital component of Vanguard’s approach, as it held 954 engagements with 680 companies. Companies should be aware when talking with Vanguard that the topics discussed more than half of those times include the composition of boards, governance structures and executive compensation. While board diversity has long been an important focus, the report states that companies should be prepared to discuss, in their public disclosure as well, their plans to incorporate diversity over time into their board composition.

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