Shareholders of the World, Unite

Most investors are passive bystanders in boardroom battles. TUMELO wants to get them involved-and take fund managers out of the ideological crossfire.

- William Baldwin

Rebel with a Cause Chief executive Georgia Stewart, at Tumelo's Bristol, England, headquarters, is already counting green wins: Four anticoal candidates were elected last year to the board of Australian utility AGL Energy

Georgia Stewart, in 2017 a final-year student at Cambridge University, campaigned to have the endowment sell off its fossil fuel stocks. That didn't get far. "When I was there they divested from tar sands," she says dismissively. Anyway, she goes on, "divestment is not necessarily the best outcome. You just end up with shareholders who don't care."

Out of those sour grapes came a business idea. Stewart, 27, is the chief executive of Tumelo, a five-year-old Bristol, England, firm that gives investors a platform through which to express their views in proxy contests. "We want more transparency and accountability," she says.

With 57 employees and $22 million in venture capital, Tumelo is not yet in the black but is positioned to get there. It finds itself on a battlefield in which do-gooders promoting causes like carbon reduction and gender equity are at war with anti-wokers who say corporations should have no mission except making a profit.

In theory, the shareholders of Exxon Mobil control it and can vote to replace the oil wells with solar panels if that's what they want. Two problems here. One is that you probably own your shares indirectly. If you have $100,000 in an S&P 500 index fund, you have 12 shares of Exxon, but you don't get the proxy. The fund operator does.

And then, if you did get the voting rights, what would you do with them? Did you have an opinion on Proposal No. 6 at last year's Exxon meeting, "Reduce company emissions and hydrocarbon sales"? Do you have time to read 500 proxy statements?