72. Tumelo

Founders: Georgia Stewart, Will Goodwin and Ben King
Founded: 2017
Website: tumelo.com

At the heart of Tumelo is a pretty simple idea. Through our pensions, most of us own tiny bits of the world’s biggest companies and this should, in theory at least, give us some say in how they’re run. In practice, however, this doesn’t happen, and pension funds vote at the annual general meetings (AGMs) of big companies based on external advice.

Tumelo wants to change all that – partnering with pension providers to let them easily get the views of their pension members and voting based on how the majority feels.

Through our pensions, most of us own tiny bits of the world’s biggest companies and this should, in theory, give us some say in how they’re run.

What this means is that, collectively, pension members get the chance to influence major decisions on issues like whether banks should lend to fossil fuel companies, if it’s right that senior executives can earn millions of pounds per year, or how high targets for racial diversity or gender equality should be set.

What Tumelo does is provide a platform that allows everyone enrolled in a particular pension scheme to quickly and easily see which companies the pension fund is invested in, what those companies do, and which resolutions are going to be voted on at the year’s AGM.

You can then indicate if you are for or against particular resolutions, allowing the fund manager to vote at the actual AGM based on the majority view of pension members rather than an expert recommendation from an external agency.

Through Tumelo, pension members get the chance to influence major decisions like whether banks should lend to fossil fuel companies, if it’s right that senior executives can earn millions of pounds per year, or how high targets for racial diversity or gender equality should be set.

With large pension funds often owning significant parts of these companies, their votes have real power in changing how some of the world’s biggest firms operate.

Founded in 2017 by Cambridge University graduates Georgia Stewart, Will Goodwin and Ben King, Tumelo has already signed up big hitters like Aviva Investors and Legal & General and is well on the way to its ultimate goal – helping all of us to understand and use the power of our pension holdings.