Trustee Empowerment through Capital Stewardship
Joel Solomon
Assistant Director
Center for Working Capital

Trustees today face multiple challenges to effectively fulfilling their responsibilities, Joel Solmon suggested in his presentation. To help them he says they must receive education that will empower them to understand their fiduciary duties and how their authority can facilitate their work.

According to Solomon, trustees must learn how to actively govern their funds by adopting and enforcing policies, seeking educational opportunities when necessary and managing staff and service providers with the day-to-day responsibility for running the fund.

The Center for Working Capital offers educational opportunities within its Capital Stewardship Certificate Program. It covers fiduciary duties, investment strategies and active ownership and corporate governance. The program also advocates the concept of capital stewardship as the best approach to pension fund governance and investing.

The program, according to Solomon, has three goals:

• achieve best risk-adjusted rates of return,
• encourage active and authoritative trusteeship, and
• enhance long-term value.

Solomon has worked as a consultant on issues related to pension fund investments in emerging markets. For 15 years prior to joining the Center Solomon worked with Human Rights Watch and other international human rights organizations