New impact index tracks which 79 firms are embracing neurodiversity

As more financial advisors adapt impact investing tools into their practices, one planner launched an index tracking which firms are embracing neurodiversity.

The term refers to the principle that autistic people, as well as those affected by dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, social anxiety disorders or other conditions, should have comprehensive workplace accommodations enabling them to reach their full potential as employees while companies reap the accompanying benefits, according to the Harvard Business Review.

Put another way on the website of The Neurodiversity Index, the concept “seeks to influence us to focus more on the unique strengths” these employees bring to the table, rather than the “toxic and dangerous ways of understanding people with neurodevelopmental disorders” of the past. Founder Andrew Komarow of Planning Across the Spectrum and a majority autistic team created the index after noticing that there weren’t any products or research focusing on neurodiversity, other than discussions of the “same five companies,” he said in an interview.

“We didn't want to just talk about something, we really want to make it more accessible to as many people as possible,” said Komarow, founder of the Farmington, Connecticut-based practice that’s affiliated with LPL Financial as its broker-dealer and Private Advisor Group as its RIA. “We've already had discussions with at least one ETF provider.”

Using an eight-part screening criteria including whether firms have promoted neurodivergent leaders and how much they devote resources to workforce programs, the index picks out 79 publicly traded companies carrying an equal weight under the ticker symbol “AULXXIX.” Firms such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft and SAP have received more attention for their efforts around neurodiversity than other members of the index, Komarow said. Bank of America, BNY Mellon, Prudential, Chevron, IBM, Dell Technologies, Tesla, Salesforce and Virgin Galactic made the group as well. It spans 79 companies in a nod to the atomic number of gold and the fact that “and the symbol for gold is AU(tism),” according to the announcement.

“We are prepared to dig into the actual business practices of the companies that we continuously hear about hiring neurodiverse workers and to hold them to a higher standard,” Liz Yoder, the director of research for the index, said in a statement. “We know some great companies do not get all the press of the Microsofts and the SAPs of the world.”

More investors are choosing to use their trillions of dollars in assets under management for impact investing each year, and innovators are making much more information available. Between 2018 and 2020, the worldwide AUM of products using any ESG criteria surged by 15% to $35.3 trillion, or more than a third of all professionally-managed assets, the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance found in a study earlier this year. Despite the challenge of competing against established asset management giants, managers focused on areas like veganism, prison divestment and Catholic tenets have rolled out new products.

5 questions for Planning Across the Spectrum founder Andrew Komarow

Clients and planners are starting to catch up to institutions like pension funds that have boosted the level of investment in recent years, according to advisors Cameron Barsness of Seattle-based Kutscher Benner Barsness & Stevens and Victor Orozco of San Diego-based Bair Financial Planning. Both are members of a group called “US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment,” which has attracted a range of participants from individual advisors to some of the largest financial and research firms.

To Orozco, the new index shows how a more inclusive planning profession can lead to a wider array of new products. He also notes that a lot more advisors have begun using the portfolio he designs out of his practice over the past year or so. Research and products created with specific beliefs and social values in mind, such as gender or racial equity, often serve as “a starting point” for advisors and clients to branch into impact investing and ESG data, Barsness said.

“It's about asking questions that are maybe out of that norm that you would as an investment advisor,” she said. “The effects of social unrest were really helpful to remind people that it’s not just alpha and beta. It’s these other issues that really affect the performance of a company over the long term.”

Komarow and his team look forward to measuring the index over time against the S&P 500 and other benchmarks, he said. Planning Across the Spectrum formally unveiled the index in late October even though it and the independent calculation vendor it uses, IPOX Schuster, began quantifying the combined returns of the stocks at the end of the second quarter. The Neurodiversity Index trailed the S&P 500 after its first three months by 55 basis points, though it was more than 200 bps ahead of the market for September.

Advisors, clients and the public should have a data-driven method for tracking the effect of neurodiversity on performance, Komarow said.

“If we didn't make an index, we could say we were doing this but we couldn't show it,” he said. “Someone would have to take our word for it.”