Interview | Doug McMurdo
“It’s about thinking globally and acting locally.”
Doug McMurdo, chair of the Local Authority Pension
Fund Forum (LAPFF), talks to Mona Dohle about bringing local concerns to corporate boards, improving accounting standards and holding multi-nationals to account.
You have recently become LAPFF’s chair. What are your priorities in the role? I have represented Bedfordshire Pension Fund on LAPFF’s executive committee since 2016. Over the past two years, LAPFF has sadly experienced the deaths of two great figures, Councillor Kieran Quinn and Councillor Ian Greenwood, who were its chairs in 2017 and 2018. Councillor Paul Doughty took the reins as acting chair earlier this year before I was voted as the permanent chair by members at the AGM in July. As chair, I look forward to ensuring that LAPFF continues to take a prominent role in strong and active stewardship across the companies where our members’ money is invested.I will also work closely with LAPFF’s vice chairs, Councillor Rob Chap-
man and Councillor John Gray, as well as the other executive members who are an invaluable part of this process.
Being a local councillor means that you deal with the down-to-earth issues affect- ing your community, which is a different world from shareholder meetings with big corporations. How will your work in the local community influence your role as LAPFF’s chair? You would think so, but a lot of people who attend AGMs are typically the people I would find in my local community. They too are concerned about returns, including how company performance affects their lives, and wish to know how behaviour in boardrooms impacts invest- ment outcomes.
20 | portfolio institutional | September 2019 | issue 86
I have found that speaking to people at a local level gives me a good view of the impact our companies are making on their lives. This is an important perspective to bring to companies when LAPFF engages with them, especially as, you will have seen, the US Business Roundtable [an associa- tion of senior corporate executives] has said that companies have to respect local com- munities in how they operate. It’s about thinking globally and acting locally, but also thinking about how local issues can inform global action.
LAPFF engages with companies on behalf of six local authority pools, who have their own ESG agenda and asset managers to help with shareholder engagement. How do you develop a common agenda?
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
