Proxy Advisers in Flux

In October and November 2025, both Glass, Lewis & Co. (“Glass Lewis”) and Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) announced updates to how they deliver research and voting recommendations, signalling a shift from standardised benchmarking toward investor-specific models that reflect individual stewardship priorities. This marks a broader transition where proxy advisors are moving from defining governance norms to enabling investors to apply their own frameworks, resulting in less predictable recommendations.

AQTION’s latest insight shows that ISS remains the primary proxy advisor for 50 of the world’s largest 65 institutional investors, compared to nine primarily using Glass Lewis. However, despite their dominance, most investors apply their own voting guidelines. Only 14% of the largest 65 investors demonstrate a high reliance on proxy advisor recommendations, while 54% show low reliance. Request the Second Edition Stewardship in AQTION report here for further insights into proxy adviser reliance, investor trends, and voting dynamics.

Glass Lewis

Glass Lewis will end its benchmark policy, marking a major shift in its model. This transition contrasts statements made in May (Source), when it denied any plans to retire the benchmark policy. From 2027, Glass Lewis will instead provide research that reflects varied investor priorities within a single company report, offering analysis from up to four distinct perspectives:

1. Management-Aligned: Supportive of management, absent egregious/illegal activity, financial restatements, questionable accounting practices or gross negligence.
2. Governance Fundamentals: Promotes governance best practice and shareholder rights, deferring to management on operational, environmental and social issues.
3. Active Owner (Most Similar to Current Policy): Aligned with market-specific regulation, governance best practice and financially material environmental and social considerations.
4. Sustainability: Tailored to investors that integrate sustainability issues across decision-making and support policies that mitigate environmental and social risks.

Glass Lewis argues that this model enables clients to review issues through a chosen lens and align voting decisions with their firm-specific stewardship priorities (Source, Source). The new format is expected to be more formulaic and indicator-based, featuring less text and more reliance on structured metrics to support AI integration and customisation. By 2028, all Glass Lewis clients are expected to operate under customised policies, completing the transition to a fully bespoke model.

Glass Lewis has clarified that the multi-perspective approach will apply to all voting matters, including special situations and M&A research. While Glass Lewis is expected to maintain corporate engagement, no details have been shared on whether its methodology will change under the new framework. 

CEO Bob Mann explains,

“The traditional one-size-fits-all model of proxy advice no longer meets the needs of a diverse client base” (Source)

However, observers view the move as primarily driven by mounting US regulatory and political pressure, including ongoing legal challenges in Texas and broader “anti-ESG” sentiment (Source, Source).

ISS

In October 2025, ISS disclosed an expansion to their proxy advice offering, which also represents a shift. This comes in the form of two new research services:

1. Gov360: Similar to ISS’s current offering, this service delivers reports on shareholder meetings. The key distinction is that the service excludes vote recommendations, instead enabling institutional investors to draw their own conclusions from ISS’s research and analysis.
2. Custom Lens: This service offers fully tailored research reports, allowing investors to customise the data, analysis, and recommendations according to their own voting policies. ISS applies each client’s criteria to generate recommendations, while subscribers can further adjust the format, content, and scope of their reports to create a fully bespoke output (Source).

ISS confirmed it will maintain its benchmark policy but noted these services expand client-specific options, reflecting growing demand for flexibility. Unlike Glass Lewis, which is phasing out its benchmark policy, ISS will retain its framework while broadening customised options (Source).

Lorraine Kelly, Head of Governance Solutions for ISS, explains,

“In today’s complex and rapidly shifting markets, institutional investors need service options that evolve to meet their needs” (Source)

What Does This Mean for Companies?

The shift represents a weakening in the objective definition of governance best practice, making individual investors’ expectations more complex to understand and satisfy. While investors have always held different governance standards, companies now face greater uncertainty in trying to decode a wide array of expectations.

In this environment, companies are encouraged to make proactive efforts to understand their individual investors’ priorities, rather than relying on standardised benchmarks. To identify risks such as activism or remuneration scrutiny, boards should stay informed about how proxy adviser frameworks evolve (Source) as well as each investors’ own expectations and sensitivities. Those that remain well-informed will be better positioned to navigate an increasingly fragmented proxy landscape.

Navigating the Changing Landscape

As investors move away from uniform governance standards, stewardship will become increasingly bespoke. The AQTION Platform provides the clarity and structure to help users interpret investor expectations.

• Profiles of more than 830 institutional investors across multiple markets
• Over 200 simple, digestible data points covering each investor’s ESG expectations and voting policies
• Access to over 3,400 verified investor contacts involved in stewardship and voting decisions
• Granular data on investor voting behaviour and rationales at the general meetings of over 20,000 companies, dating back to 2021

These capabilities make it easier to understand investor behaviour, strengthen engagement and align governance strategies with evolving stewardship priorities. To request a demo of the AQTION platform, click here.