Defiant girl takes a stand in front of Wall Street’s bull

Temporary statue honors Women’s Day and a push for diversity.

Wall Street visitors and tourists will notice a new addition if they’re walking down Broadway in New York this week. About 20 feet across from the famous Charging Bull statue — a symbol of Wall Street’s strength and might that has loomed over the street since 1989 — a bronze statue of a girl stands facing it, hands on hips, a defiant expression carved into her face.

The temporary statue, placed by McCann New York advertising agency and its client, Boston-based State Street Global Advisors, may be a stunt to draw attention to the index fund giant’s campaign to get more women into board roles against the backdrop of International Women’s Day.

A plaque in front of the girl says “SHE makes a difference,” a reference to the ticker for the exchangetraded fund.

But the campaign ploy is also backed up by an actual threat from the big money manager, which has nearly $2.5 trillion in investments under management: If directors aren’t making tangible progress toward adding women to their boards, they’ll vote their shares against them.

State Street is vowing that it will now vote its shares in the 3,500 public companies in which it invests — the money manager is among the largest index fund providers and often holds sizable stakes in its companies — against nominating committee members, or the directors who select the members of boards, if the company has no female directors or cannot show tangible progress toward trying to improve their diversity. “As a large index provider, we have to be invested in these companies,” said Lori Heinel, the deputy global chief investment officer for State Street. “The best thing we can do is be more activist in those companies to improve their performance as a long-term provider of capital.”

She notes the “wide body of evidence” that companies with more diverse boards of directors tend to perform better. Research has shown, for example, that companies with female directors perform better on measures such as return on equity, average growth, price/book value multiples, as well as offering higher profit margins and better priced mergers.

“This is the first time we’re really putting a stake in the ground to say this is an issue that’s meaningful to us,” she said.

MARK LENNIHAN PHOTOS / AP A crowd gathers around a statue of a fearless girl facing the Wall Street bull on Wednesday in New York. The statue was installed by an investment firm to mark International Women’s Day.

The statue, created by artist Kristen Visbal, is a visual reminder of State Street Global Advisors’ effort to get more women into board roles.