All Briefs

internal communication professionals need to do a better job of demonstrating their value to senior leadership. To be considered trusted advisers and counselors by executives and senior leaders, internal communication professionals should, among other things, assess and measure their value, bring unique insights, and better understand the financial metrics used by business leaders.

The Conference Board has launched an expanded initiative to track and benchmark societal investments, and their resulting impact, extending the organization’s 75 years of leadership in corporate citizenship research.

In this heightened environment of activism, quantitative investing and shorting, understanding who owns your company and why and even more importantly which firms do not own the stock is information that company management and the board should have in their arsenal.

There are massive institutions, entities, and laws designed to foster trust in the markets. One of those entities is the public company auditing profession itself.

The Conference Board recently released its annual study on the state of corporate sustainability disclosure around the world. The research assesses environmental and social disclosure practices of the 250 largest publicly traded companies domiciled in each of the 10 largest economies (by GDP at purchasing power parity) in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. As we look to Asia, what are key trends in reporting practices across the region? Where do we see the biggest challenges ahead?

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, which handles no-action letters regarding shareholder proposals, is back in business for now as the federal government shutdown ended Jan. 25.

C-suite executives are taking notice of global talent shortages. Attraction and retention of top talent was the top ranked internal hot button issue by CEOs in every region of the world. At the same time, wage increases are ranked among the bottom of the hot-button issues across regions. This is in line with current wage data for most regions, but with the wage acceleration in recent quarters in many parts of the world, we do expect this to change in 2019.

A consensus of law firms believe the partial federal government shutdown could significantly slow down the Rule 14a-8 no-action letter process if it isn’t resolved soon.

Fortune 500 board representation of women and minorities saw an all-time high of 34 percent, compared to 30.8 percent in 2016, according to the "Missing Pieces Report: The 2018 Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards," a multiyear study published by the Alliance for Board Diversity (ABD), in collaboration with Deloitte.

Research on corporate sustainability reporting finds that large U.S. companies, even in the absence of domestic nonfinancial reporting requirements, are more transparent than their peers in much of the world. Sustainability disclosure by U.S. companies is largely driven by pressure from stakeholders.