👉 Background: HESTA began as the the industry supe fund for workers in health and community service sectors. Since then, they've grown to $87 billion in funds under management and has more than 1 million members - of which 80% are women.

👉 What happened: Now, HESTA is putting pressure on Australia’s largest companies to adopt gender targets by asking the Chairs and CEO’s of ASX300 companies to commit to ensuring 40% of its staff are women - across all levels of the business.

👉 What else: If these companies don’t hit this target, HESTA has threatened to vote against executive remuneration. In other words, hitting the execs right where it hurts for them. Talk about shareholder activism!

What's the key learning?

💡Shareholder activism is when big investors leverage their ownership power to push companies to make change. And in this case, the change is about becoming more socially responsible.

💡Super funds own a significant proportion of the Australian stock market, and, therefore, they can have a big influence over the companies they invest in.

💡Recently, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) revealed the gender pay gap which was 21.7% in the private sector. So super funds like HESTA are using their voting power to nudge companies into setting new gender targets.