Satyam Khanna
Satyam Khanna

SEC does ESG... Securities and Exchange Commission has named Satyam Khanna its first senior policy advisor on environmental, social and governance matters. His job is to advance ESG initiatives across the SEC’s offices and divisions.

Khanna will coordinate efforts related to climate risk and other ESG developments, issues of great significance to investors and capital markets, said acting chair Allison Herren Lee in announcing the Feb. 1 appointment.

Most recently, Khanna was resident fellow at NYU School of Law’s Institute for corporate governance and finance. He also was a counsel to SEC commissioner Robert Jackson.

Ceres, the nonprofit that advances sustainability issues at companies and in the capital markets, applauded Khanna’s appointment.

His hiring to the newly created position is “a critical step forward on the path to mandating climate risk disclosure and addressing climate change as a systemic financial risk,” said Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets.

Rothstein said Ceres looks forward to working with Khanna to address climate change as “a systemic risk to our markets and our economy.”

A Ceres report found that the US banking sector was far more exposed to climate risks than what they have disclosed to regulators and investors.

Treasury secretary Janet Yellen plans to appoint a top official to lead climate change efforts and to establish a Treasury climate “hub.”

“Chief diversity officer” ranks among the top of executive hires in 2020, according to a survey by LinkedIn. Unlike other top titles like “chief revenue officer” and “chief growth officer,” the diversity post has nothing to do with bread-and-butter issues.

The role of a CDO is to make sure a company’s work force is representative of America. Let’s hope their success eliminates the need for the CDO job. CDO can follow the footsteps of chief digital officers, which was a hot job more than a decade ago.

She doesn’t work here. It’s even worse: she owns the place. Publix Super Markets is trying to distance itself from Julie Jenkins Fancelli, daughter of founder George Jenkins, after the Wall Street Journal reported that she funded the DC rally on Jan. 6 that led to the storming of the Capitol.

She forked over $300K of the $500K funded for the Ellipse event at which the impeached Donald Trump urged the crowd to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.”

The $40B chain, which has more than 817 stores in Florida with the balance of the 1,265 units in the southeast, faces a boycott by customers incensed with Fancelli’s role in funding the insurrection rally.

Publix issued the following lame statement:

Mrs. Fancelli is not an employee of Publix Super Markets, and is neither involved in our business operations, nor does she represent the company in any way. We cannot comment on Mrs. Fancelli's actions.

The violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a national tragedy. The deplorable actions that occurred that day do not represent the values, work, or opinions of Publix Super Markets.

Fancelli is more than an “employee.” She is the aunt of Publix chairman Ed Crenshaw, who ran the company from 2008 to 2016, and part of the Jenkins family.

Forbes ranks the Jenkins family as the 39th richest in America—worth $8.8B—and owner of a 20 percent stake in Publix.

Publix has every right to speak out on Fancelli’s Jan. 6 activities.

Its website is filled with homages to founder “Mr. George” and his belief in “open communications.”

In dodging a comment about Fancelli, Publix is failing to live up to the legacy of Mr. George.