Institutional Shareholder Services Inc.

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) serves institutional investors — including investment managers, mutual funds, pension and profit‑sharing plans, banks and other institutional clients — by providing proxy research and voting services, ESG data and ratings, market intelligence, and related advisory and workflow tools. These offerings are delivered primarily through subscription products and platform access rather than through discretionary portfolio management or traditional buy/sell recommendations.

ISS’ research and voting work is produced under published analytical frameworks (Benchmark and Thematic Voting Policies) and supplemented by client-specific custom policies, using automated data collection and AI-supported analytics alongside qualitative analyst review. The firm maintains an annual, public policy review process and internal oversight (including a Feedback Review Board) and supports execution and reporting through its ProxyExchange platform and specialized products such as Special Situations research and vote disclosure services.

Compared with many advisers in this category, ISS combines company- and bond‑level Ratings & Rankings and climate scoring that feed thematic index construction (via its sister index administrator STOXX) with subscription licensing of data and indices, the distribution of securities class action services through ISS SCAS, and market intelligence/publications via Asset International (ISS MI). ISS also operates through multiple foreign affiliates that render advice under ISS’ auspices and serves a wide range of institutional client types, a mix of features that is less common among investment‑manager firms.