Alliance Advisors Corporate Governance Group Managing Director James Miller, formerly with ISS, shares noteworthy insights and commentary in this "Doing the Right Thing" interview (page 7) with Proxy Insight, including these remarks on institutional investors:
Q: You recently joined Alliance Advisors from ISS. Have you found your approach to governance has changed since you made this move?
A: Not my approach exactly, but certainly I speak to a different audience. While at ISS, I applied ISS policy. That policy is formulated based on the feedback from ISS’s institutional clients. However, not all institutions are equal. They often have different views, and some have more clout than others because of their size and access to the boardroom. At ISS, I helped develop and apply benchmark policy which strives to be the “consensus view.” However, it is important to understand that it is not, and can never be, the unanimous view or even the majority view, depending on the number of alternatives available. That’s why ISS and Glass Lewis have custom policies that follow their benchmark policies except in certain areas as specified by the particular institutional investor.
Miller encourages investors to assess each company based on its unique facts & circumstances in lieu of applying a one-size-fits-all (or even one-size-fits-most) approach, while also advising companies to be sure to "tell their story and show what makes them different" so that investors understand the bases for differentiation. This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!