Over 480 investors, companies, and market stakeholders provided valuable insights on board oversight of AI, incentives, and shareholder meeting formats.

San Francisco, Limerick, November 11, 2024 – Glass Lewis, a global leader in corporate governance and proxy voting, published the findings of its 2024 Global Policy Survey. The survey, which solicited input from all Glass Lewis clients and market stakeholders, seeks to align Glass Lewis’ Voting Policy Guidelines with prevailing market sentiment on timely governance, ESG, and stewardship matters ahead of the 2025 proxy season.
In total, Glass Lewis received 113 responses from investors and 374 responses from non-investors. The survey questions spanned a variety of areas, including, but not limited to board oversight of technology, the transatlantic pay gap, and climate transition oversight, among others. Below are notable findings from the survey.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance

  • Despite the nascent stage of AI on board agendas, over three quarters of investors believe it is not too early to hold boards accountable for AI issues.
  • Investors appear most interested in understanding how boards are overseeing AI governance and seeing comprehensive reporting on usage and ethical considerations.

Performance-Based vs. Time-Based Incentives

  • Most investors and non-investors still see value in performance-based incentives, preferring these award structures to time-based awards.
  • However, more than 85 percent of investors are willing to support the use of time-based awards under the right circumstances.

Shareholder Meeting Format

  • While most investors (52 percent) favored in-person attendance at annual general meetings, the most popular response among non-investors (47 percent) was that shareholders should defer to the board on meeting format.

“Gathering diverse market perspectives through our Global Policy Survey, extensive global engagement program and other strategic market initiatives, meaningfully strengthens our policy review process and guidelines,” said Chris Rushton, senior director of research at Glass Lewis. “We express our sincere gratitude to the more than 480 professionals who contributed their insights on these timely and important governance and stewardship topics.”

In mid-November, Glass Lewis will release its 2025 Voting Policy Guidelines for key markets and its 2025 ESG Initiatives Policy Guidelines covering shareholder proposals. The company will publish its guidelines for additional local markets in mid-December. The 2025 Voting Policy Guidelines will apply to shareholder meetings held after January 1, 2025.

To access Glass Lewis’ 2024 Policy Survey, please visit here.

About Glass Lewis

Founded in 2003, Glass Lewis is a leading global provider of independent corporate governance, stewardship, and proxy voting solutions. The firm serves more than 1,300 investment managers and pension funds globally, who use its high-quality corporate governance and ESG research and proxy voting software to carry out their fiduciary duties. Glass Lewis also helps companies understand and implement corporate governance best practices and how investors view them. Headquartered in San Francisco, Glass Lewis has offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information, please visit www.glasslewis.com.

Contact:

Sarah Cohn
+1 646 826 3752
scohn@glasslewis.com

Dimitri Zagoroff
+1 415 694 5165
dzagaroff@glasslewis.com