Yumi Narita: Promoting Good Governance from the Comptroller's Office of NYC.

(1:27) - Start of interview(2:59) - Yumi's "origin story"(4:18) - Her start with Barclay's Global Investors (which was later acquired by BlackRock).(4:50) -  The lessons she learned working for the Stewardship team at BlackRock (2004-2018)Proxy Voting GroupBig change on engagement with companies started after financial crisis (2007-2009).Impact Dodd Frank Act (2010) - Say on Pay.(10:24) -  Her experience as Global Head of Corporate Governance at Alliance Bernstein (2018-2019).(13:29) - How do governance professionals (proxy voting teams) reconcile dissonances with portfolio managers.(15:17) - Her role at the NYC Office of the Comptroller’s Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment team. "It's hard for asset managers to be advocates, as opposed to asset owners such as the NYC pension funds."(19:29) - Her take on the SEC's new shareholder proposal rules and DOL's new rule shifting away from ESG.(25:09) - Her take on the increasing importance of institutional investors' voice on corporate governance, particularly the top 3-5 asset managers. Any antitrust risks on cross-holdings by institutional investors?(29:39) - Her predictions on how some of these regulations may change during a Biden Administration.(32:20) - Her take on the Boardroom Accountability Project 1.0 (2014) focused on Proxy Access.(35:56) - Her take on the Boardroom Accountability Project 2.0 (2017) focused on board diversity, matrix and refreshment.(39:03) - Her take on the Boardroom Accountability Project 3.0 (2019) calling on publicly-traded companies to adopt a policy requiring the consideration of both women and people of color for every open board seat and for CEO appointments, a version of the “Rooney Rule” pioneered by the NFL. ("at least 20 companies have adopted this practice, and this will continue.")(40:12) - Push on EEO-1 Reports (it's a type of CEO accountability project, "the majority of Fortune 100 companies currently disclose these reports or have committed to disclose them.")(42:59) - Her take on California's SB-876 and AB-979 laws on boardroom diversity.(44:49) - Her opinion on the BRT restatement of the purpose of the corporation (2019).Her involvement with The Test of Corporate Purpose Initiative.What are the quantitative measures or data that can analyze these metrics on corporate purpose?(48:10) - Her thoughts on whether we will ever see employees elect corporate directors per Elizabeth Warren's proposed Accountable Capitalism Act (2018)(49:29) - Her favorite books:East of Eden, by John Steinbeck (1952)Works by Michel Foucalt (studies on biopower and other theories of power)The Happiness Industry, by William Davies (2015)(50:43) - Her mentor was her late grandmother who taught her that "as a woman, you can always take care of yourself and you should ensure your own financial stability, if possible."(51:29) - Lessons from 2020: "You have to live your life today - time is more important than money."(52:36) - The experience of living in NYC under COVID-19.(54:51) - The living person she most admires: Laura Nader. "You have to dress conservatively if you're going to have extremely revolutionary ideas."Yumi Narita is the Executive Director of Corporate Governance at the Comptroller's Office of New York City. The Comptroller serves as investment advisor, custodian, and a trustee to the New York City Pension Funds, which hold approximately $228 billion in assets. In her role as Executive Director, Ms. Narita is responsible for developing and implementing active ownership programs for public equities, including voting proxies, engaging portfolio companies on their ESG policies and practices, and advocating for regulatory reforms to protect investors and strengthen investor rights. Ms. Narita has 16 years of experience in the ESG industry. Prior to this role, she was the Global Head of Corporate Governance at Alliance Bernstein, and Vice President on the BlackRock Stewardship team.Follow Evan on Twitter @evanepsteinMusic/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License You can follow Evan on social media at:X: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

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