GoDaddy 2021 Sustainability Report: Corporate Governance
Originally published on GoDaddy For Good
We earn the trust of our stakeholders by upholding high standards.
At GoDaddy, we are committed to upholding the highest level of professional and ethical standards. We take seriously our obligation to earn and maintain the trust of our stakeholders and to promote a culture of honesty, integrity and trust among ourselves, our customers and our business partners. This starts with the tone at the top set by our Board of Directors.
Our high standards
Our commitment to conducting business with honesty and integrity is captured in our Code of Business Conduct & Ethics. The code serves as a source of guiding principles and applies to all our employees, officers and directors.
To ensure our workforce has received and complies with the requirements of the code, GoDaddy employees must complete the Do the Right Thing (DTRT) training during onboarding and then again once every two years.
Our ethics helpline
Our entire workforce, and those outside the company, including contractors and vendors, have access to our ethics helpline, where they may report any violations of law, the code or company policies. Every quarter, the Audit and Finance Committee receives a report on the issues raised and resulting actions from ethics helpline calls.
In our annual GoDaddy Voice survey, we ask employees for feedback on the strength of our ethical compliance practices and whether they feel comfortable reporting ethics- related issues. 90% of GoDaddy employees participated in the 2021 GoDaddy Voice survey, which revealed that 92% believe GoDaddy’s leaders maintain high ethical and compliance standards and 89% feel comfortable reporting ethics and compliance issues.
Proactive efforts
While our GoDaddy Voice results on these topics are heartening, we’re not complacent. In a constantly evolving global business climate, we believe it’s imperative to continuously evaluate and evolve. In 2021, we created new compliance training materials to address current business risks, covering topics such as antitrust and competition, anti-bribery/anti-corruption efforts, and anti-money laundering tactics.
We’re committed to generating value and cultivating trust.
Robust corporate governance practices are essential to executing our strategy, creating long-term value and maintaining the trust of our stakeholders. Our corporate governance framework lays the foundation for effective oversight and management accountability, all while enabling us to remain competitive in the dynamic environment in which we operate.
Our Board of Directors
Our business is managed under the direction of our Board of Directors, which is currently composed of nine members, eight of whom are independent. We have a highly engaged and diverse Board that is actively involved in oversight of strategy and risk and serves as a valuable resource for our leadership team.
Demographics, diversity and refreshment
Our Board believes that diverse representation fosters a robust, comprehensive and balanced deliberation and decision making process that is essential to the continued effective functioning of the Board and continued success of the Company. As a part of its ongoing refreshment efforts, over the past four years our Board has added five directors, three of whom enhance the overall gender and racial diversity of our Board. In 2021, our Board rotated committee assignments, appointing new chairs for two committees to facilitate fresh perspectives at the committee level.
Experienced and Independent Board
Our Board exercises strong, independent oversight as stewards of shareholder capital
Corporate Governance Guidelines
Our Board has adopted thoughtful Corporate Governance Guidelines. These guidelines address items such as the qualifications and responsibilities of our directors and director candidates, assessing Board and committee performance, limitation on other board service, stock ownership guidelines, CEO and other executive officer evaluation, compensation and succession planning, among other governance policies and standards.
Oversight of risk
A key function of our Board is informed oversight of risk management. Our Board, directly and through its committees, oversees the formation of long-term strategic, financial and organization goals of the Company and plans designed to achieve such goals, as well as strategic, legal, regulatory, financial, management and operational risks. For example, our Board discusses our long-term strategy annually at a multi-day session and reviews progress against those strategic objectives throughout the year.
Our Audit and Finance Committee reviews major financial risk exposures and mitigation strategies, data privacy and cybersecurity risk management, enterprise risk management and other compliance risk programs. In 2021, our Board assigned new oversight responsibilities of sustainability and environment, social and governance (ESG) developments and disclosures to our Nominating and Governance Committee, and memorialized oversight responsibilities over human capital management to our Compensation and Human Capital Committee.
For more information on the responsibilities of our Board and committees, including
with respect to risk oversight, please see our Corporate Governance Guidelines, our committee charters and our proxy statement at our Investor Relations webpage
Corporate governance enhancements
In 2021, in response to shareholder feedback and as part of our Board’s ongoing evaluation of and commitment to corporate governance best practices, our Board approved proposing the following items for shareholder vote at our 2022 annual meeting to:
- Declassify the Board.
- Remove the supermajority vote requirement to amend the company’s charter and bylaws.
These proposals are described in more detail in our 2022 Proxy Statement and will be voted on at our 2022 annual meeting of shareholders in June 2022.
Additionally, in 2021, the Board approved the following corporate governance enhancements:
- Adopted a majority vote standard for director elections.
- Assigned oversight of our sustainability initiatives to the Nominating and Governance Committee.
- Expanded the scope of the Compensation and Human Capital Committee to include assisting the Board with its human capital management oversight responsibilities.
- Established overboarding guidelines related to our directors’ service on other public company boards.
- Enhanced the company’s anti-pledging policy.
Download the 2021 GoDaddy Sustainability Report here
About This Report
Unless otherwise noted, GoDaddy’s 2021 Sustainability Report covers the company’s environmental, social and governance strategies, activities, progress, metrics and performance for the fiscal year that ended December 31, 2021. This report references the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards for the Internet Media and Services sector. GoDaddy is committed to regular, transparent communication of our sustainability progress, and to that end, we will share case studies, updates and articles on an ongoing basis through our website and other key resources. We intend to continue providing updates about our sustainability journey by publishing an annual sustainability report.
