[Photo: Bronze Statue of Girl in Front of the Iconic Wall Street Bull in downtown Manhattan - by Federica Balabrega]

State Street Global Advisors CEO Ron O’Hanley announced that his firm is taking a stand, front and center, in support of gender equality. On Tuesday, one day before International Women’s Day, the firm placed a bronze statue of a young girl by Kristen Visbal in front of the iconic Wall Street bull in downtown New York. It will remain in place for the month of March – “In like a lion, Out like a lamb.”

The Boston-based giant investment giant also adopted new guidelines to press the 3,500 public companies in which it invests to increase the number of women on their boards. In doing so, State Street points to some very telling statistics: (i) one out of every 4 Russell 3000 companies has no women on its board; and, (ii) nearly 60% have fewer than 15% of women directors on their boards.

State Street Corp. Chairman and CEO, Jay Hooley, trumpeted the parent company’s supporting position by posting on the internet the its State Street Policy on Equal Employment Opportunity.

February 6, 2017

At State Street, commitment to diversity is an essential element of our culture. We want our organization to mirror the clients and communities we serve. And we know that providing an environment that supports a diverse and inclusive workforce is both the right thing to do and smart business strategy. Toward that end, State Street maintains a global Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy that prohibits unlawful discrimination against employees and prospective employees. We also take seriously our obligations as a federal contractor to maintain an Affirmative Action Program (AAP) in the United States, under which we work to identify areas of underrepresentation for women, minorities, individuals with disabilities, and protected veterans. We then take good-faith, non-discriminatory steps to help increase the participation of these groups in our workforce.

Overall responsibility for administering the EEO Policy and the AAP is assigned to our global head of Employee Relations in Global Human Resources, who is also responsible for designing and implementing the audit and reporting system described below to monitor compliance with our obligations as a federal

contractor. With both of these initiatives, State Street’s objective is to ensure that personnel decisions are based on legitimate job requirements, and not on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, age, disability, genetic information, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, citizenship, marital status, domestic partnership or civil union status, familial status, military and veteran status or any other protected characteristics. These policies cover all kinds of personnel matters, including recruiting, hiring, promotion, discipline, transfer, training, compensation, benefits and separation decisions.

[Click above link for State Street's complete Policy.]