Engine No. 1's Grancio: ‘People Will Appreciate an Economic Argument'

ENGINE NO. 1 sent shock waves across corporate America in May when the fledgling investment firm won a boardroom battle with Exxon Mobil Corp., securing three seats on the oil and gas giant’s board after purchasing only about $40 million of its stock.

SCOTT DEVEAU

The shareholder vote was heralded as a major victory for so-called ESG investing, which focuses on improving corporate environmental, social, and governance metrics. Afterward, Engine No. 1 raised more money from investors, launched an exchange-traded fund with the ticker VOTE, and filed for a second ETF focused on climate issues.

Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Grancio, 49, is driving strategy for Engine No. 1, which now has about $430 million worth of assets under management. A native of Springfield, Mass., with degrees from Stanford University and Columbia Business School, Grancio is a veteran of the fund management industry. She was part of the team that founded the iShares family of ETFs at Barclays Global Investors, now part of BlackRock Inc. Based in San Francisco (Engine No. 1’s name was inspired by the city’s first fire station), Grancio plans to spend some of her time in New York, where the company is building an office in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. She spoke to Bloomberg Markets in September about the Exxon boardroom victory and building a business from her home office. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

SCOTT DEVEAU: What was it like to build a business and wage a boardroom battle with one of the world’s biggest oil giants while working from home during a pandemic?

JENNIFER GRANCIO: Our founding team are definitely the kind of people—and I would put myself in that category—that are tenacious. We do better under pressure. It was intense because we were doing a lot of things at the same time. But we spent time before we launched the firm just establishing foundationally: Who are we? What are we trying to do? What does the goal look like? We went through laying out the groundwork to run a 40 Act [Investment Company Act of 1940-regulated] business. Which is totally different than the groundwork to run a private fund, which is totally different than running a proxy campaign, which is totally different than building effectively a retail consumer-level brand with a clear story. And so—just trying to run multiple pieces and then stay connected—we were on Zoom and Microsoft Teams all day.

SD: You’ve had to fundraise, too. So have you been meeting with investors?