Data and Disclosure: An interview with Diana van Maasdijk

Diana van Maasdijk is the CEO of Equileap, a data provider that assesses 4,000 companies globally on 19 criteria including gender balance, the gender pay gap, paid parental leave and anti-sexual harassment policies. We speak with her about the findings of the fifth Gender Equality Global Report and Ranking, what’s improved and what still needs to happen to push companies and investors further towards gender parity - faster.

What was most surprising to you about this year's report? 

Two things. The first is I was pleasantly surprised to see that companies still continue to improve. I was worried that two years into the pandemic, we were going to see negative or decreasing scores. We know that women have been badly hit by the pandemic: there was a McKinsey report saying that one in three women around the world was considering cutting down their hours and leaving their work. 

And then, after five years of publishing this report, my team and I have come to the conclusion that there is a really clear correlation between legislation and better performance on gender equality. So I would like to see more legislation for the corporate sector to reach certain targets. We are seeing it right now mostly in European countries. 

What has changed in gender lens investing since Equileap started?

When we first set up Equileap, there was around 600 million invested in gender lens funds in the public markets. And today, we have 6 billion. So it's 10 times in about five years. And one of the ETFs that tracks one of our global indices is about to reach a billion US dollars. And I think that goes to show that there's definitely interest and that it's growing.

And are there any emerging sectors or themes you're paying attention to?

We have our gender equality scorecard that we use for all countries that we research, and all sectors. Within this, one of the themes that we think needs to be addressed is the gender pay gap: there's a major lack of transparency there. But we also see that more investors are interested in issues around sexual harassment, and the composition of teams beyond the executives. So not only the leadership, but more the middle management in the workforce.

How has what you measure changed since you've started?

So the good news is that today, companies are doing much better when it comes to gender equality. The problem is that [progress] is painfully slow. For example, a number of companies have published an anti sexual harassment policy, five years after the Me Too movement. Today a little more than half of the 4,000 companies we research have such a policy. Now, it's great that it is increasing, but it still is quite disappointing that it is not all of the companies.

What else would you like to see changing?

I would definitely like to see more ESG funds that incorporate gender into their overall strategy. So in the beginning, we have seen interest in gender lens investing and then using our data for gender lens funds and portfolios. I think that's great. But I would also like to see it more integrated into ESG; gender equality falls really well under the social theme. 

Could you talk more about how ESG standards are evolving to take gender into account, and what still needs to happen?

I see the first steps. For example, the SFDR regulations around ESG in Europe, of the 14 criteria that asset managers must be transparent on and report, two are gender-related. One is the gender pay gap. And the other is the ratio of women on the board. I think that's a really great step. The SEC in the United States, has also been mentioning that they are likely to come up with some form of regulation on transparency on ESG. And they have been mentioning doing things around gender issues. The problem until now is that nobody really knew what ESG was, it didn't come with its own instruction book. And now we're starting to see a little bit of regulation. I like the fact that some gender components are being discussed. But of course, I think we should see much more.

How is the report helping to shift capital or company behaviour?

Well, we have this little carrot, right. Companies care about awards, they care about making it to a list or not, they care about whether they're the top 10 in their sector or country. I've noticed that a number of companies are really upset when they don't see themselves in the top 100, they're immediately calling us and asking why. And usually it's because their score didn't increase much, and others did. So I think that this is what we're using as the tool to really encourage companies to do better. And then the other tool we're using is by selling our data to asset managers and asset owners, they will then use it to invest in those companies that are doing best on gender equality. 

We're also seeing more publication [of their results]. Now, it's not enough, I think that more should happen. But a lot of companies also have told us "I didn't know that someone was collecting this data, I didn't know that there was interest". And when they know that we're collecting, that we're ranking, scoring, that we're selling the data, they start to become more transparent.

The Equileap 2022 Gender Equality Global Report and Ranking is available to download here