Their opportunity is born out of our polarized society where the demand for direct social engagement from corporates seems to be shifting more than ever before. By bringing non-core business issues they care about to the Boards of large public companies alongside campaigns that borrow from both value driven shareholder activists and political activist campaigns, they hope to influence broader social thinking and create a media storm to dominate cultural conversation.

At the start of this, the left of center social activists were able to achieve massive wins. Many public companies adopted GHG reduction targets, diversity initiatives, and embraced an expanded view of corporate citizenship. Their narrative won headlines and created societal noise, and the increased attention only galvanized these activists and encouraged them to keep pushing. After several years of success from the left of center, the right of center has become more engaged, often looking to undo what their counterparts on the other end of the political spectrum have accomplished within the last few years of corporate activism.

All of these activists have become more sophisticated in using plays from the traditional financial activist playbook. We saw this culminate in the first-single issue proxy fight at Starbucks over unionization issues. The fight deck released by the activist displayed sophisticated financial acumen and linked alleged unionization mismanagement to decreased financial returns. While this was the most public fight in early 2024, there were several instances of social activists behaving like traditional financially-motivated activists, including supporting a company in defense of an activist, endorsing unsolicited bids, and blocking a transaction. These “New Barbarians” are starting to move away from the realm of distracting and annoying shareholder proposals and are becoming more aggressive in facing off with the Board directly.

The trouble these types of activists can cause for corporations has been clearly illustrated during the summer of Robby Starbuck, a social activist who has perhaps taken the most public, fast-paced, and unique approach to activism thus far and as far as has been reported, he is not a shareholder in any of the companies he’s won changes from. He is an online conservative activist who was dubbed “some kind of kind of conservative muckraker” by a Bloomberg op-ed. He’s looking “to stoke outrage about what he calls companies’ ‘woke’ diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.’” His results have been impressive: every company he has attacked has walked back initiatives once targeted and many have preemptively done so to prevent becoming an target. He shows no sign of letting up, and the recent wins have only encouraged his followers who are now participating in “exposing” companies in real-time.