AB’s Executive Officers and Board of Directors oversee the firm’s strategic direction. The following board characteristics reflect our belief in strong governance guided by diversity of thought:
In 2020, the Head of Diversity & Inclusion, the CEO of Asia-Pacific and the Head of Human Capital joined the operating committee, and AB welcomed two new members to its Board of Directors. These appointments bring important perspectives and expertise to the highest levels of the firm.
We take our fiduciary obligations seriously, and we expect our people to treat all clients fairly and equitably—clients’ interests come first. We’ve built our business model on the foundation of a strong risk-aware culture, prudent risk-taking and a strong governance framework.
Robust Compliance Framework
Firms are defined by the quality and rigor of their systems, training and oversight. We’ve designed our compliance framework to ensure that business operations stay compliant and that AB employees are empowered to raise and resolve potential issues.
Explains rules and policies governing employees, including conflicts of interest, employee personal trading, gifts and entertainment, and political contributions and activities.
We consider compensation-related matters and workplace practices, such as diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Includes policies on mitigating potential conflicts of interest, investment guidelines for services and clients, research activities, security transactions with AB affiliates, and beneficial ownership reporting.
A set of guiding principles and industry best practices that bring consistency to how we identify, measure, monitor and manage risk firmwide.
AB employees have several paths for securely reporting and escalating ethical, compliance or other concerns, including:
Formal reporting channels (a supervisor or manager) or the AB Compliance Department, General Counsel’s Office or Head of Audit
The AB Ombuds Office—a confidential channel to get help on ethics‐related issues or questionable practices
EthicsPoint, a third‐party service, which gives employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders a secure online way to report potential ethics and compliance issues quickly, easily and anonymously (if desired)
Strong Security and Business Continuity Infrastructure
At AB, we take information security—in particular the protection of clients’ and employees’ information—extremely seriously. Our Information Security Standards and Guidelines and Corporate Information Security Policy outline the efforts we undertake to secure information.
Continuity and Security
Our Chief Security Officer and his team monitor and control the processes related to our robust cybersecurity infrastructure.
All websites and cybersecurity infrastructure are also third-party tested with state-of-the-art software to safeguard sensitive information.
A comprehensive business continuity strategy and disaster recovery plan allow us to maintain critical functions while minimizing client impact.
Governance and Proxy Voting
Based on 9,052 total shareholder meetings in 2020. Numbers may not sum due to rounding.
Advocating the Ownership Perspective
As shown by our voting record, we continue to support proposals that encourage companies to strengthen their corporate governance structures, support shareholder rights and strive for greater transparency.
NOTE: Section 303A.00 of the NYSE Listed Company Manual exempts limited partnerships from compliance with Section 303A.01, 303A.04 and 303A.05 of the NYSE Manual. AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (NYSE: AB) is a limited partnership.
The Board of Directors of AllianceBernstein Corporation (“Board”), general partner of AllianceBernstein Holding, voluntarily has adopted a Corporate Governance Committee Charter that complies with Section 303A.04 and a Compensation Committee Charter that complies with Section 303A.05. These documents, as well as the membership of each Committee, may be found on this website, and we provided the location of these postings in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, as filed February 12, 2021. Please note that our Corporate Governance Committee has four members, two of whom are independent, and our Compensation Committee has six members, five of whom are independent.
