Engine No. 1 aims make an impact. The firm’s revolutionary approach to active ownership encourages investors to engage rather than divest, and ultimately aims to drive long-term change, hold corporations accountable, and deliver better financial outcomes.
In December 2020, Engine No. 1 made headlines with its campaign against energy giant ExxonMobil, citing unsustainable operations and emissions practices. Engine No. 1 rallied together many of Exxon’s major shareholders and made the case that climate risk is financial risk. As a result, with the support of BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, and large pension funds, Engine No. 1 was able to win three board seats at Exxon.
The high profile nature of the firm’s fight against Exxon, not only proves how important environmental and social issues have become to investors, but highlights the power voting shareholders have.
The Engine No. 1 Transform 500 ETF (VOTE) is a passively-managed ETF that tracks a market-cap-weighted index of 500 of the largest stocks of US companies from any sector. The fund intends to encourage transformation in companies through the activism of shareholders by applying proxy voting guidelines and taking part in dialogue with management.
The Engine No. 1 Transform Climate ETF (NETZ) aims to tackle climate change. The actively managed ETF is designed to invest in companies that are driving and benefiting from the energy transition. Leveraging a data-driven approach, NETZ is constructed with long-term, high-conviction positions in the industries that most need to decarbonize, including agriculture, energy, and transportation.
Yasmin Dahya Bilger leads Engine No. 1’s ETF business and has spent her career in the capital markets and in building asset-management businesses. Before joining Engine No. 1, Yasmin worked at J.P. Morgan Asset Management where she ran the US product specialist teams across factor-based, market cap, and model portfolio strategies. Previously, she was an ETF product strategy and development lead where she focused on the launch of new ETFs across all asset classes. She started her career at Goldman Sachs in Fixed Income Interest Rate and Macro Cross Asset Sales. Yasmin received a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.