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Good practice Imported

BNP Paribas - Investing in women on the board

France · International · Transnational · See the France profile

BNP Paribas Asset Management has implemented a comprehensive proxy voting system designed to promote gender diversity on the boards of directors within its portfolio companies. This global initiative is part of the company's broader commitment to fostering inclusive governance an

20 %
Minimum board female-representation threshold triggering an automatic vote-against (since 2020)
30 %
Target female representation on portfolio-company boards (ongoing)
BNP Paribas - Investing in women on the board

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
BNP Paribas — website
Power domain
Economic Power
Methods / tools
Competence development, Monitoring, Benchmarking
Keywords
parity, equality, gender, diversity, governance

Context

BNP Paribas Asset Management runs a global proxy-voting system to promote gender diversity on the boards of the companies it invests in, expanded since 2020 across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Objectives

The initiative aims to drive gender diversity in corporate governance by holding investee companies accountable for board composition, as part of BNP Paribas Asset Management's sustainable-investment (ESG) approach.

Activities

The firm mandates voting against all director candidates at companies whose boards lack female representation, using an analytical system that assesses board composition against gender-diversity criteria; boards with less than 20% female representation automatically receive a vote against.

Results

The stated policy floor is a minimum 20% female board representation before an automatic vote-against is triggered, with a broader ambition for portfolio-company boards to reach at least 30% female representation.

Conclusions

BNP Paribas Asset Management presents the voting mechanism as a proactive lever for change beyond advocacy, though the source material does not report independent evidence of resulting board-composition changes.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Requires an analytical/data system to assess board composition globally plus ongoing stewardship-team time; no budget figure published in the source material.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Policy has been in place and expanding geographically since 2020, with no defined end date.
Staffing & skills
ESG/stewardship analysts, Proxy-voting/governance team

Conditions for success

  • Reliable data on board composition across portfolio companies
  • Global voting infrastructure covering multiple markets
  • Firm-wide commitment to enforce the voting policy consistently

Common failure modes

  • Limited leverage where BNP Paribas AM holds only a small stake
  • Data gaps on board gender composition in some markets
  • Vote-against alone may not change company behaviour absent broader investor coordination

Where it fits

Governance type
private asset management firm (investor stewardship)
Scale
transnational
Income level
high-income

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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