Having joined Storebrand Asset Management’s sustainable investments team in 2025, Erik Högberg focuses on corporate governance and active ownership. With a background in corporate controversy research and sustainability analysis, Högberg shares his views on the role investors can play in shaping better corporate practices, the importance of proactive engagement, and the evolving regulatory landscape.
– What motivated you to join Storebrand AM, and how do you hope to contribute to the company’s mission of advancing sustainable investment?
– My view of Storebrand AM has always been that of a sustainability pioneer in the Nordics. In a previous professional role, I evaluated asset managers based on a number of sustainability factors, and Storebrand consistently ranked very favorably. It’s clear that this company practices what it preaches when it comes to sustainability, and it has an impressive team and infrastructure supporting its work on sustainable investment – which is a large part of what motivated me to join.
As for what I hope to contribute, my goal is aligned with that of Storebrand Asset Management: contributing to real-world impact and long-term value creation for our stakeholders, including the companies we invest in. In my role, I work on various tasks related to the Risk & Ownership team’s efforts on corporate governance and other sustainability topics. This includes identifying and evaluating ESG risks, laying the groundwork for excluding companies in breach of Storebrand’s Exclusion Policy, developing sustainability policies, and helping integrate ESG risks into portfolio managers’ investment decision-making processes. The team is also responsible for active ownership, which includes engagement with investee companies and policymakers, and voting at company AGMs – a key focus area for me.
– Your work in ESG research has involved analyzing complex corporate controversies –from anti-competitive behavior to human rights violations. What is your view on the role investors can play in driving better corporate practices?
– I believe asset managers have a significant role to play in influencing investee companies to move in a more sustainable direction, which benefits both the investee company, investor, and society at large, through minimizing sustainability risks and boosting real long-term value creation. Active ownership – through direct engagement with companies and voting at shareholder meetings – is key to driving this type of change. Corporate governance, which includes proper corporate practices, is one of the key areas (if not the key area) asset managers can and should engage on, due to its central and overarching nature in enabling other sustainability efforts. As one of my colleagues succinctly put it: “There is no ESG without the “G”. It is the node through which everything else happens.”
The type of research I used to provide for clients, which I now consume in my current role, complements the work I do on corporate governance. In that role, I analyzed company controversies on topics such as corruption, anti-competitive behavior, price-fixing, illegal monopoly and oligopoly practices, money laundering, bribery, and tax evasion. Most of these practices can be argued to be direct consequences of poor governance. Taken further, most breaches of the UN Global Compact and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises – including human rights, labor rights, and environmental issues – can in some way be traced back to improper corporate governance.
The main thing I learned about corporate governance in my previous job is the value of proactiveness over reactiveness when it comes to asset managers’ engagement with portfolio companies. Successful proactive ownership that nudges companies in the right direction on governance can prevent a controversy before it even has the chance to materialize.
– What trends connected to your work are you tracking right now?
– Like many other asset managers, the biggest trend I’m tracking is the backlash against ESG across the pond and the consequences it brings. One particularly concerning aspect of this trend, which directly affects my work, is the weakening of shareholder rights. This issue is multifaceted – ranging from regulatory bodies reversing previous policies meant to protect these rights, to individual companies relocating from one U.S. state to another in search of more lenient regulation – but the result is a weakening of shareholders’ influence, including restrictions on their ability to bring shareholder resolutions or securities litigation.
The most important recent development from the U.S. SEC is its move to change Rule 14a-8 of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, which governs the shareholder proposal process. The proposed changes would make it more difficult to file and co-file shareholder resolutions related to environmental and social issues. This follows the SEC’s February 2025 guidance, which rescinded previous 2021 guidance that had limited companies’ ability to exclude proposals raising broad societal concerns. Now, the SEC is working to formalize an update to the rule that would increase the thresholds for filing a resolution and, in simplified terms, allow companies to exclude proposals –such as those focused on environmental or social issues – on the grounds that they are not “material to the company’s business.” Just recently, on November 17th, the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance announced measures that would in practice open the floodgates to U.S. companies’ freely excluding shareholder proposals without the Division weighing in on the matter. Suffice to say, the barrage of actions aimed at sidelining shareholders through increasing restrictions on shareholder rights has serious implications for shareholder democracy and corporate governance as a whole.
This is a trend both I and the team will continue to monitor closely, and perhaps one we can revisit in more depth in future communication.
References:
- UN Global Compact, October 30, 2025.
- OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, June 8, 2003.
- Paul S. Atkins, "Keynote Address at the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance’s 25th Anniversary Gala, October 9, 2025.
- SEC’s February 2025 guidance, Shareholder Proposals: Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14M (CF), February 12, 2025.
- SEC.gov | Statement Regarding the Division of Corporation Finance's Role in the Exchange Act Rule 14a-8 Process for the Current Proxy Season November 17, 2025.