By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donna Anderson, who heads company governance at T. Rowe Worth and has been a strong voice on a spread of hot-button subjects within the funding world, intends to retire on the finish of this 12 months, the asset supervisor advised Reuters.
T. Rowe Worth, one of many world’s strongest funding companies with $1.6 trillion in belongings underneath administration, confirmed data from three sources acquainted with the matter that Anderson plans to depart her place.
“Donna Anderson has knowledgeable us of her choice to retire from her function … efficient on the finish of this 12 months, and we’ve begun transitioning her work to a successor,” Eric Veiel, Head of World Investments and Chief Funding Officer at T. Rowe Worth, advised Reuters in an e-mail.
Anderson, 56, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
T. Rowe Worth has not but named a successor for Anderson, who joined the Baltimore-headquartered asset supervisor in 2007.
For practically twenty years, Anderson spearheaded T. Rowe Worth’s interactions with a whole bunch of firms as points together with chief govt pay, the make-up of company boards, and environmental, social and governance insurance policies, turned more and more necessary.
“She is an extremely well-respected chief, not solely in firm board rooms and the asset administration trade’s company governance circles, but additionally throughout the partitions of T. Rowe Worth,” the place she protects the curiosity of the corporate’s shareholders, Veiel wrote. “She can be missed.”
Each spring, buyers and companies alike jockeyed to win help from T. Rowe Worth in company elections and Anderson was the chief who usually helped make the ultimate name on how the funding agency solid its vote.
Within the small and tight-knit governance world, Anderson performed a important function in shaping voting insurance policies after which laying them out publicly generally at conferences corresponding to this week’s Council of Institutional Buyers assembly in Washington.
“Donna Anderson has been an necessary drive within the stewardship world and has all the time been prepared to name it as she sees it,” stated Jessica Wirth Strine, managing associate and chief govt officer at consulting agency Jasper Avenue Companions. “She has not simply adopted the pack.”
Whereas T. Rowe Worth actively invests shoppers’ cash in retirement and faculty financial savings portfolios, it’s not an activist investor that pushes firms on social or public curiosity points.
Throughout her profession, Anderson usually confronted off towards distinguished buyers together with billionaire activist Nelson Peltz and company chiefs like Exxon Mobil’s head Darren Woods, however by no means sought the limelight whilst she was thought-about to be a luminary in her personal proper, legal professionals, bankers, and buyers stated.
