Governance Research and Benchmarking
The Morrow Sodali Board & Governance team can provide clients with tailor-made research and analysis on governance-related topics, either as a standalone service or as part of other services such as board effectiveness reviews, internal and group governance reviews, education and director development, and our ESG services.
Over the years, we have developed an extensive database and library of governance data points covering companies across different sectors and countries and information about the governance rule and standards that apply to them. This is supplemented by our knowledge of investor expectations regarding governance in different markets.
Using the insights this information provides, Morrow Sodali can help clients to better understand the trends and stakeholder expectations in terms of board and corporate governance practices for their particular market or sector, or for companies that have similar characteristics (for example, groups, family- or state-owned businesses, development and international financial institutions, and not-for-profit organizations). If requested, we can also provide recommendations or suggestions for the client to consider.
Examples of the services we can provide include:
- Peer benchmarking: Benchmarking the client’s practices against the disclosed practices of carefully selected peer companies. The subject matter will depend on the client’s needs but could include, for example, research into board mandates; board size, composition and diversity; the functioning of board meetings; board committee structures and mandates; remuneration matters; and executive leadership structures.
- Benchmarking against governance codes and standards: We benchmark and compare a client’s practice against applicable governance codes, standards or investor expectations. As well as helping individual companies to assess themselves against these standards, we benchmark national corporate governance codes against the codes in comparable markets when advising national authorities on revisions to their code.
- Ad-hoc governance research: As well as benchmarking, we undertake more complex and discrete research of specific interest to a client, for example into the implications of a new regulatory requirement on the client’s governance practices or emerging governance trends such as those related to ESG and sustainability.
In addition to undertaking research or benchmarking for specific clients, Morrow Sodali periodically publishes analyses of governance trends and challenges based on our proprietary data which we believe would be of interest to policymakers and the market as a whole.
For more information on our governance research and benchmarking services, please contact us: boardgovernance@morrowsodali.com.