Quantifying culture in an industry driven by data

The industry is finally on a path that values corporate culture much more highly, with clients are asking firms about their Signatory or reporting status around ACT as they seek to understand firms’ strategy around this in a standardised way.

This was the opening thoughts at the ACT 2nd Birthday event, which kicked off with a fireside chat between Alex Matcham, head of UK wholesale at M&G Investments, and Bev Shah, co-CEO at City Hive.

The pair explored what good practice looks like - “That’s the silver bullet question that everyone asks but it really depends on the organisation itself,” said Bev - and why the idea behind the launch of ACT was not to provide a list of things for firms to carry out a tickbox exercise, but a framework for measuring and quantifying culture in an industry that is driven by data. 

During the chat, Bev also reflected on the progress of ACT since launch: “When we announced ACT, we didn't expect two years later to have 17 companies as fully committed signatories. We didn't expect ACT would be on a data provider, or be having conversations with other platforms about ACT becoming a screening tool. 

“We didn't expect we'd have to close off how many people we can have on our Stewardship Council of amazing practitioners and to also have launched the Global Leadership Council to drive the strategy globally to ensure that it's embedded throughout our industry. 

“We weren't expecting to hold a party two years on that was oversubscribed and have a room full of lovely people here. I genuinely thought two years on, I'd still be knocking on the doors of the first 12 firms that had committed and saying: ‘Are you going to do this? You said you do it? Why don't you do it?’

“I was not expecting the fund buyers who have actually put it into their process - Hargreaves Lansdown has openly said, they won't be looking at you if you haven't done it. And other fund buyers, not just our Stewardship Council, are asking about it. Those are things I wasn't expecting. 

“If those are the things that we've achieved in two years as an independent organisation that started just as two people, then imagine what we'll do in the next two years.”

Click here for the press release on City Hive’s Stewardship Council targeting 50 Signatories by the end of the year.

Click here to find out more about the ACT Standard.