-
Yolanda Courtines
, CFA
- Equity Portfolio Manager
Iceland, Intermediary
ChangeOur stewardship investing team aims to identify and invest in ESG leaders and/or companies measurably improving their ESG practices. They believe companies focused on ESG in conjunction with financial fundamentals have the potential to develop competitive advantages and increase their value.
Our approach: Creating a flywheel effect
Seeking sustainable returns and stewardship
Our stewardship investment team believes companies that sustain attractive returns on capital can focus on positive ESG outcomes, leading to potentially higher stock prices and enabling further investment in stewardship. This may help generate a virtuous cycle, or flywheel effect, improving both profitability and stewardship over time.
Data-driven, fundamental research
The goal is to identify ESG leaders or companies measurably improving their ESG practices. We use analytical frameworks and proprietary rating systems, in addition to fundamental research and engagement.
Constructive dialogue and engagement
This investment team believes that working with companies to improve practices and focusing on the full set of stakeholder considerations helps them better assess management depth, risk controls, and innovation potential.
Stewardship investing in action
The mix of strong fundamentals and sustainable industry tailwinds prompted our stewardship investing team to do a deep dive on a timber company. Learn how their investment mosaic has the potential to create value for clients.
UNIQUE PERSPECTIVES
Meet the Manager
“Find out how Portfolio Manager Yolanda Courtines uses her cosmopolitan background and language skills to identify companies with outstanding steward practices.”
— Yolanda Courtines, CFA, Equity Portfolio Manager and Chair, Investment Stewardship Committee
Meet our stewardship investing experts
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Mark Mandel
, CFA
- Equity Portfolio Manager
-
Samuel Cox
- Equity Portfolio Manager
Insights
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Insights Posts
2023 Sustainability Report
We appreciate the opportunity to share our approach to advancing sustainable practices across our investment, client, and infrastructure platforms.
Report
2025-04-30
Three ways social considerations can enhance portfolios
Four leading Wellington equity and fixed income experts explore three ways social considerations can enhance portfolios.
5
min
Article
2025-04-30
Will proposed corporate governance reforms help to narrow the “Korea discount”?
Could South Korea's Corporate Value-up Program help to narrow the so-called “Korea discount” and build on the momentum gathering pace elsewhere across Asia to improve corporate governance and shareholder returns?
Quick Take
2025-03-31
How to translate a critical concept into return potential
How to translate the critical concept of stewardship into rewarding returns? Portfolio Managers Mark Mandel, Yolanda Courtines and Sam Cox share their firsthand experience.
Article
2025-02-28
Long-term investing in an age of short-termism
ActiveViews host Will Lockhart and Yolanda Courtines, co-manager of the Wellington Global Stewards and European Stewards Funds, explore how being genuinely long term in an increasingly short-term world may provide a differentiated investment edge.
Event replay
2025-01-31
Shareholder activism in Japan: Integrating ESG within the investment process
In the final article within our series on shareholder activism in Japan, ESG Analyst Soo Ho Jung shares how the Japan equity team integrates ESG to help realize value for investors.
Quick Take
2024-09-30
Our commitment to net zero
We share our client-centric, engagement-driven approach to net zero by 2050, including our investor toolkit and measurement processes.
Continue reading
Whitepaper
2024-08-31
Building resilience: Key questions equity investors need to ask today
Consider these essential traits for re-assessing the resilience of your core equity portfolio against higher interest rates and more adverse macro conditions.
Article
2024-07-12
Shareholder activism in Japan: How our engagement approach drives value
Equity Portfolio Manager Katsuhiro Iwai introduces the Japan equity investment team's approach to engagement, sharing a number of successful recent case studies.
Quick Take
2024-08-31
Activism – History and evolution in Japan
Investment Specialist Toshiki Izumi examines the history of shareholder activism in Japan, with particular emphasis on the differences between current and historical attitudes toward activism.
Quick Take
2024-06-30
The value in valuing employees
Companies able to adapt and respond to challenges in the labor market will find themselves well positioned for the future, say Equity Portfolio Managers Yolanda Courtines and Mark Mandel.
Article
2024-03-31
URL References
Related Insights
Reports and policies
FAQS: Stewardship investing
In this context, the definition of stewardship includes the ways in which companies balance the interests of multiple stakeholders, including employees, consumers, vendors and suppliers, local communities, and the environment, in their pursuit of profits. How a company incorporates ESG risks and opportunities into its corporate strategy also matters.
In our view, any ESG issue that has the potential to affect the financial outcomes of a company or other issuer may be considered “material.” In general, we see ESG risks as strategic business issues that can affect the long-term value of the securities we invest in on behalf of clients. Material ESG issues vary by sector. Wellington’s ESG Research Team has developed materiality frameworks and models to help our investment teams more accurately understand which ESG issues are likely to be most material to value creation at the security and portfolio level.
The team assesses stewardship by watching how successfully company boards and management teams balance the interests of people and the environment as they do business.
ESG ratings and research are integral to the ESG Research Team’s processes and function. Shared via a central collaboration tool, the ESG ratings, rationales, and commentaries help our investment teams assess the risks and opportunities they believe are most relevant to their investment process and to the individual issuers they may hold.*
*All investment teams at the firm can access the tools and dashboards discussed. Investor usage typically depends on the types of approaches the investor manages, or their specific areas of coverage. Investors managing portfolios in accordance with ESG- and SI-specific strategies, those incorporating ESG into their fundamental process, and those managing in accordance with client guidelines and regulations are typically the most frequent users of these tools.
We believe that ESG issues are strategic business issues that can affect the long-term value of a security. Therefore, as with any other form of risk analysis, integrating ESG analysis into the investment process may help investors identify both opportunities and sources of material financial risks, which may alter their investment thesis about a given security. Companies or issuers with high degrees of ESG risk can potentially face higher costs associated with regulation, litigation, consumer preference, or investor behavior.
Explore other sustainable and ESG investing opportunities
Seeks to invest in issuers that we believe contribute to a lower-carbon future, can help the world adapt to a changing climate, or are well positioned to manage transition and/or physical risks
Seeks to invest in issuers whose core products, services, or projects provide environmental and/or social solutions in a differentiated way, with the goal of driving measurable positive impact alongside financial returns
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