From the Editor...

Everyone everywhere seems to have a lot of questions and opinions on what's come out of the White House in the past six weeks, and one particular issue that's sure to be a topic of discussion in mutual fund boardrooms is diversity, equity, and inclusion. Almost since day one, President Trump has signed executive orders and taken other measures to eliminate DEI programs across government, academia, and the private sector. Corporations have responded by rolling back their programs, and proxy advisory firm ISS said it would discontinue its practice of considering gender and/or racial/ethnic diversity of a company's board when making vote recommendations. This leaves fund directors with a lot to ponder and discuss, related to their own DEI practice—in proxy voting, beneficial ownership, and their approach to recruiting for and filling their own board seats. We spoke to some fund governance professionals about where the thinking is at at this early stage, and we'll keep an eye on things going forward.

Looking through a broader lens, we compiled our latest 10 Things... list about what fund boards are expecting to be talking about this year. It's not all related to Washington or politics, and of course it's not a fully comprehensive list. But, it kicks things off and provides our readers with a starting point for 2025. 

We've also recently taken a look at how fund governance is being handled within the Victory Capital-Amundi deal. It's been about a year since Victory acquired Amundi's U.S. business, and while plans are afoot to rebrand the Pioneer Funds, the board structures at the two firms are remaining intact for the moment. Firms generally take a unitiary board structure approach to governance, even when there are various fund groups, so Victory's approach is interesting and a bit off-trend.

And finally, Buddy Donohue has kicked off a five-part series on conflicts of interest with a Viewpoints focused on investment advisers. The series will look at potential conflicts in specific sectors of the asset management business, including funds, advisers, broker-dealers, service providers, and more. 

For now,

Hillary Jackson, founding editor