Where is diversity's Exxon moment?

This week's top stories President Biden visited Tulsa on Tuesday where he announced that Vice President Kamala Harris would lead efforts to pass a new federal expansion of voting rights. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon set the tone at Congressional hearings last week by calling racial audits of banks "bureaucracy and B.S." For Evanston, passing reparations for racial discrimination turned out to be the easy part. Last week a small investment firm showed the world the magic of reading the room right. Despite owning just 0.02% of Exxon Mobil Corp.'s shares, Engine No.1, an activist investment firm, secured multiple seats on the oil major's board. That's because some of the firm's largest investors backed the activist's push to diversify away from oil and fight climate change. Could we see similar moves from climate's ESG cousin — activist investors pushing for greater diversity and equality? Recent developments suggest we're headed in that direction. Over the years, investor associations and individual firms have had some success pressuring companies to increase board diversity or reveal workforce demographics. And this year looks like it will set records for diversity proposals at company annual meetings in the U.S. and globally. Still, those methods will only go so far — some big bank CEOs last week signaled they are hesitant to some changes investors are pushing, specifically racial audits.  Compare that to just two years ago when companies didn't understand why they were being asked about corporate diversity or why it was important, said Meredith Benton, founder of Whistle Stop Capital in San Francisco. Many companies are now scrambling to catch up. "These conversations came fast and furious, more than any other ESG issue," she told Bloomberg last week. "Many companies are willing to engage, and they also understand that this is an issue that needs to be discussed at the board level. As for what firm will actually get itself elected to a board. That remains to be seen. In the meantime, there are certainly plenty of targets for companies that could do better on the diversity front. Just last month, Morgan Stanley offered a peek into what its next generation of leaders will look like. Spoiler alert: they are mostly male and White. And so far the bank's own investors have been pretty quiet. —Ruth David Follow Us Get the newsletter By the Numbers A new $250 million venture fund hopes to boost the endowments of historically Black universities and colleges, which sorely lag those of other elite institutions.   New Voices "It's good to reveal that there are female founders out there that don't get the attention that they should. It's a good stepping stone, but of course the goal is that you don't need a computer program." Tine Karlsen CEO and co-founder of Vev Bloomberg News supports amplifying the voices of women and other under-represented executives across our media platforms. Before You Go The biggest beneficiaries of Canada's pandemic aid were those who needed it least.  Under a new gender equality plan drawn up by Mario Draghi's government, men and women in Italy will finally have the same earnings and employment potential. What climate science loses without enough Black researchers.    Like getting the Bloomberg Equality newsletter? Subscribe to Bloomberg.com for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and gain expert analysis from exclusive subscriber-only newsletters. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more.   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Equality newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022