As I approach my first year anniversary serving in the role of a “Transparency Champion,” it’s a good time to reflect on how the mission is going to persuade others that transparent disclosure creates real value for businesses. That it’s a noble thing that us drafters of disclosure can take pride in.
Here are some stats about how my first year went:
- RealTransparentDisclosure.com is Popular – Over 4000 get the periodic blogs pushed out to them and the “open rate” for the emails received is eye-popping. People seem to find our practical blogs to be of value as they review our “good disclosure” examples, our anecdotes and tips from the perspective of a disclosure drafter, commentary about hot trends and developments, and more.
- Disclosure Drafters Want to Learn More About “Transparent Disclosure” – We’ve had a number of conversations with those in the field drafting disclosure about what they can do to convince others in their company that more transparency is a good thing, as well as educational conversations about what “transparency” is – and isn’t.
- Investors & Other Stakeholders Want More Transparent Disclosure – We’ve had a number of conversations with those that read disclosure. They uniformly are thankful for our efforts to educate disclosure drafters about the benefits of transparency. The readers want better disclosure that better tell a company’s story, whether that story is good, bad or mixed.
- The Transparency Awards Continue to Gain Traction – Working with the Transparency Scientific Committee to tweak the criteria for this year’s Awards was educational for me and this year’s Awards promise to be better than ever. We’ve already started the process of evaluating the proxies as they roll in, as well as review the other four type of disclosures for which Awards are given.
Last year, nearly 48,000 viewed the Awards announcement on LinkedIn – and 4000 read the published announcement. Our 27-page report on lessons learned from the Awards winners proved to be very popular. And the message of transparency was shared by more than 40 media outlets, including Ethisphere, Director & Boards, Today’s General Counsel, The Corporate Board, TheCorporateCounsel.net, and Corporate Compliance Insights.
