The head of one of the largest super funds is optimistic the nation’s businesses and public servants won’t follow the lead of US President Donald Trump in rolling back diversity measures, saying the belief in “inclusive and equitable leadership” was firmly entrenched in Australia.
HESTA, like other shareholders, has increasingly been using its voting might at annual general meetings to force publicly listed companies to push harder on improving gender diversity.
Last year, the industry fund, which caters to more than 1 million members in health and community services, urged the chairs and chief executives of ASX 300 companies it’s invested in to commit to ensuring 40 per cent of their staff are women.
HESTA chief executive Debby Blakey is optimistic Australia will not roll back its gender diversity targets. Credit: Eamon Gallagher
Hesta CEO Debby Blakey on Wednesday said the $91 billion super fund, whose members are overwhelmingly women, voted against the re-election directors and chairs at 47 companies, including Harvey Norman, Cettire and Guzman Y Gomez, over their gender diversity achievements.
“What sits at the core of this is our deep belief that gender diversity isn’t just about fairness,” Blakey said in an interview. “It is about smart business, and it is about improving the overall effectiveness and performance of companies.”
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Blakey said HESTA has a policy to consider voting against directors if less than 30 per cent of a board is female, and against chairs of companies that employ single-gender executive teams. The fund has also expanded its policy to require companies to set targets to achieve gender parity across their entire organisation – not just at a board and executive level.
Diversity, equity and inclusion policies have been under the spotlight this past fortnight after Trump used his first day in office to dismantle the US federal government’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and a day later directed that all DEI staff be fired.
US companies such as Target, Amazon, Facebook parent Meta, McDonald’s and Walmart have already pulled back on DEI policies in recent months.
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