Leadership Now Honoree Named PA Secretary of State & Honored by President Biden

Defenders of democracy are often unsung heroes, but every so often their deeds are so significant that they cannot go unrecognized. We were delighted to see one such hero recently receive national recognition for his commitment to protecting our democracy. This week, Former Philadelphia City Election Commissioner Al Schmidt was named Secretary of State by Pennsylvania governor-elect Josh Shapiro and honored with a Presidential Citizens Medal by President Biden.

2022 Leadership Now Award presented to Al Schmidt in May 2022

At our 2022 Annual Member Meeting in May, we presented the Leadership Now Award to Al for his commitment to election integrity which never wavered in the face of intense pressure, misinformation and threats. As a fierce defender of the electoral process, we are delighted to see him selected to champion democracy in a statewide role and recognized with the nation's second-highest civilian honor. 

Congratulations and thank you for your dedication to our democracy, Al!

How to Bring Transparency to Corporate Political Spending

In April, Kevin Brennan, co-head of the Investment Engine and Director of Investment Systems at Bridgewater Associates, and Paige Warren, a longtime finance executive and current senior fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University, co-authored a memo outlining how ESG—a field that has traditionally focused on issues such as environmental degradation, diversity and racial equity, human rights, board structure, and executive compensation—intersects with corporate political spending. 

Our findings? Corporate political influence is a critical but overlooked driver of ESG impact.

The Leadership Now Project ESG Task Force has championed this work, spending the past several months interviewing investors and corporate executives and gathering data from resources such as OpenSecrets, InfluenceMap, and the Center for Political Accountability. This research has helped inform our thesis:

• Corporate political influence matters to ESG.

• Political spending is often an overlooked arena when it comes to ESG.

• CEOs are more likely to align corporate political spending and ESG priorities when they experience pressure from key influencers: investors, board members, and executives and employees, supported by media awareness.

At Leadership Now, we recommend leaders of U.S. public companies take a few critical actions to ensure corporate political spending is transparent, aligned with their ESG goals, and contributes to a stable political and economic environment. 

Read more in our new memo “ESG and Corporate Political Spending: Practical Actions For Business Leaders to Reduce Risk, Ensure Alignment, & Support A Stable Economic Environment” 

Since publishing the memo, Kevin and Paige are looking ahead to what comes next. After a year exploring the potential for the ESG investing wave to help strengthen US democracy, they identified an opportunity to focus on corporate political influence. They are now working on launching a new initiative called OpenBook that aims to create the norm for corporations to provide transparency and accountability for their political spending and influence activities. Look out for their interviews on our blog in the coming weeks. 

For more insights on ESG and Corporate Political Influence, visit our ESG learning center.

Democracy News: May 2022

Here is the latest news from Leadership Now and our members.

• Academic Advisor and Harvard Kennedy School Prof. David Gergen in an article by CBS News doesn't hold back when asked to describe the state of democracy in 2022: "We can't continue on the path we're on; it's unsustainable," he said. "It has the sense that we're, like, in a car, at midnight, on the edge of a cliff, with rain falling, and no headlights." 

• Academic Advisor and Stanford Business School Prof. Anat Admati mentioned in a Financial Times opinion piece on how ESG investing is missing the realities of market power in an age of corporate concentration and rising profits.

• Academic Advisor and HBS Prof. Rawi Abdelal published an opinion piece in the Boston Globe sharing what the West could do to further support Ukraine and ensure the country comes to the negotiating table with the strongest possible position.

• In her Washington Post review of E.J. Dionne Jr. and Miles Rapoport’s new book, 100% Democracy, Policy Member Didi Kuo, senior research scholar and associate director at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, unpacks how mandatory universal voting may have the potential to fix our democracy.