At Azzad, being a shareholder isn’t just about owning a piece of a company. It’s about using that ownership stake to ask good questions and push for better disclosure when it matters. This summer, we did exactly that with Cisco Systems, Inc.
What We Did
On June 17, 2026, Azzad submitted a formal shareholder proposal to Cisco under SEC Rule 14a-8, the mechanism that allows shareholders to bring issues directly to a vote at a company’s annual meeting. Our proposal asks Cisco’s Board of Directors to commission an independent, third-party Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) and to publish the findings.
Why This Matters
Cisco is a global technology company, and its products — networking hardware, cybersecurity tools, communications infrastructure — are used by an enormous range of customers, including governments, militaries, and law enforcement and security agencies around the world. That’s not unusual for a company of Cisco’s size. But it does raise a legitimate question for long-term investors: how does Cisco evaluate whether a given customer relationship carries elevated human rights risk, and what does it do when it identifies one?
Right now, Cisco doesn’t publicly disclose much about that process. Our proposal asks the company to close that information gap by:
• Evaluating human rights risks tied to high-risk customers and end uses, particularly surveillance, military, intelligence, immigration enforcement, and border security applications
• Assessing whether the company has (and uses) tools like acceptable-use policies or audit rights to prevent or mitigate harm
• Publishing a report summarizing what it found and how it’s responding
This kind of assessment isn’t a new or radical idea. Independent HRIAs are a recognized part of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and peer technology companies have already commissioned similar independent reviews of their own high-risk business relationships.
Our Role as Engaged Shareholders
As a values-based asset manager, we screen out companies with harmful primary business lines. But screening alone doesn’t cover every situation. Some companies we hold have peripheral business relationships or product uses that deserve a closer look. Filing shareholder proposals like this one is how we push for transparency at the margins: not walking away from a holding but instead using our voice as an owner to ask for better information and, ultimately, better governance.
This is part of the ongoing shareholder advocacy work we do on behalf of our clients: using the investments you’ve entrusted to us not just to grow wealth, but to hold the companies in your portfolio to a higher standard.
