By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donna Anderson, who heads company governance at T. Rowe Worth and has been a robust voice on a variety of hot-button matters within the funding world, intends to retire on the finish of this yr, the asset supervisor informed Reuters.
T. Rowe Worth, one of many world’s strongest funding companies with $1.6 trillion in property beneath administration, confirmed info from three sources conversant in the matter that Anderson plans to go away her place.
“Donna Anderson has knowledgeable us of her choice to retire from her function … efficient on the finish of this yr, and we’ve got begun transitioning her work to a successor,” Eric Veiel, Head of World Investments and Chief Funding Officer at T. Rowe Worth, informed 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 20 years, Anderson spearheaded T. Rowe Worth’s interactions with a whole lot of corporations as points together with chief govt pay, the make-up of company boards, and environmental, social and governance insurance policies, turned more and more vital.
“She is an extremely well-respected chief, not solely in firm board rooms and the asset administration trade’s company governance circles, but additionally inside the partitions of T. Rowe Worth,” the place she protects the curiosity of the corporate’s shareholders, Veiel wrote. “She will likely be missed.”
Each spring, buyers and companies alike jockeyed to win assist from T. Rowe Worth in company elections and Anderson was the manager who typically helped make the ultimate name on how the funding agency forged its vote.
Within the small and tight-knit governance world, Anderson performed a essential function in shaping voting insurance policies after which laying them out publicly generally at conferences resembling this week’s Council of Institutional Traders assembly in Washington.
“Donna Anderson has been an vital pressure within the stewardship world and has all the time been keen to name it as she sees it,” mentioned 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 isn’t an activist investor that pushes corporations on social or public curiosity points.
Throughout her profession, Anderson typically confronted off towards outstanding 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 mentioned.