Bloomberg includes gender pay trailblazer Natasha Lamb on its '50 Most Influential List'

Lamb is one of America’s busiest and most successful organizers of gender pay equity shareholder resolutions.

In recent years, Lamb has convinced 11 major companies including Apple, Ebay, Expedia, Intel, Starbucks, Nike and Costco to produce wage data and commit to closing the gender pay gap.

Lamb is engaging an additional 12 companies this year from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Bentonville. Walmart is up next, as Arjuna Capital prepares to engage the retail giant on gender pay disclosure later this winter.

“With heightened awareness about how women are treated in the workplace, the United States is poised to make historic gains through the shareholder resolution process to close the gender pay gap,” Lamb said.

“This watershed moment should make 2018 the most productive year yet for resolutions advancing women’s rights. We can’t rely on politicians to stand up for women.

So, investors are taking matters into their own hands—not only because it is the right thing to do, but because encouraging more female leadership leads to better business outcomes.”

Lamb added: “I am honored to be singled out by Bloomberg for this incredible list of influencers and thought leaders.

While my work in shareholder activism and sustainable investing extends beyond gender pay to issues of hate speech, sexual harassment, fake news at online social media giants, and climate change at the likes of ExxonMobil, our most impactful work this year has been focused on closing the gender pay gap. In such a polarized political environment, it is encouraging to be praised for advancing women’s rights and facilitating more just workplaces across America.”

Arjuna Capital is a national leader in shareholder advocacy on the gender pay equity issue. Arjuna Capital spearheaded a successful 2015-2017 campaign to get eight out of nine US tech giants, including eBay, Apple, and Intel, to commit to disclose and close the gender pay gap.

An Arjuna Capital campaign targeting the U.S. financial sector – including leading banks, credit card, and insurance companies--is ongoing.

In 2014, Gap Inc. made history by becoming the first Fortune 500 Company to publicly confirm it pays men and women equally for equal work. Nike, Starbucks, and Costco are making similar strides on gender pay equity, but more work remains to achieve true gender equity at these companies and across the industry.

The median income for women working full time in the United States is reported to be 80 percent of that of their male counterparts. This $10,470 annual disparity can add up to nearly half a million dollars over a career. The gap for African-America and Latina women is 60 percent and 55 percent, respectively. At the current rate of progress, women will not reach pay parity until 2059.

In selecting its influential people for “The Bloomberg 50” list, Bloomberg places emphasis on recent accomplishments over lifetime achievements.

More than half the people selected to appear on the list each year have never been on it before. In an accompanying video featuring Lamb, Bloomberg notes: “all have made massive contributions in the worlds of business, tech, entertainment, politics, and finance … in the world of finance, it isn’t just a list of CEO’s. It’s the activist investor getting companies to close the gender pay gap …”

The Bloomberg 50 honorees were selected by the Bloomberg Businessweek team after months of input from many of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists and analysts around the globe, leveraging the resources of the Bloomberg Terminal, and represent the most influential thought leaders in business, finance, technology and science, politics, and entertainment.