By Ross Kerber
(Reuters) - The #MeToo movement has put new momentum behind efforts to have companies, especially in finance, disclose details about their workforce diversity – data that could throw into sharper relief the slow pace of progress for women and minorities in the field.
Shareholder activists and corporate governance experts say they expect more support for disclosures such as the share of women and minorities in the senior ranks, or how equally they are paid.
Activists including Trillium Asset Management, Arjuna Capital and Calvert Research and Management are focused especially on banks and financial firms where women often make up a large share of the workforce, but not in leadership.
The subject is also gaining attention as investors poured $4.7 billion last year into funds that evaluate companies on social criteria.
Jonas Kron, senior vice president of Trillium Asset Management, said the emergence of the #MeToo movement likely helped boost support to 51 percent of votes cast in December for a shareholder proposal his firm sponsored calling for a diversity report at Palo Alto Networks Inc.
Counting abstentions, the measure was not approved, according to Palo Alto filings. Palo Alto Networks declined to comment.
Interest in the resolutions, Kron said, "Crested at the end of the year with the MeToo tidal wave, and I think it's carrying through" into the 2018 spring proxy season.
Last spring similar resolutions got around 30 percent support of votes cast, like one at First Republic Bank that got 33 percent support and which Trillium has refiled for this year.
A bank spokesman declined to comment on Trillium's resolution. He said of the bank's top 58 executives, more than half are women.
Executives across all industries are taking stock of an ongoing national debate on sexual harassment driven by what is known as the "#MeToo movement" on social media. Dozens of powerful men in politics, entertainment and business have been fired or resigned in the face of allegations they abused their power.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in November that while the representation of women and minorities in most parts of finance rose from 2007 to 2015, the gains were not even. (Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2CbycjX) Most American companies with more than 100 employees file a federal form tallying their employees by race and gender across all job categories. Though not required to make the data public, technology leaders and a number of top banks have done so or released detailed summaries including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc, Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co.