First, I want to thank you for your question and your passion. I share that passion, and so do many of our colleagues at this table. We really want to see better representation at the board level, and that's why we're pursuing this piece of legislation.
To your first point with respect to the timeline of five years, I just want to highlight the fact that once this legislation is put in place we will allow companies ample time. As I mentioned, there is a shareholder democracy component to this as well, so we're going from slates to the individual election of the board, director, members, and so on.
The idea is that we will give them a few years to determine, first, what their policies are, and second, better representation. We have to give them a little bit of runway. I think a year or two might be too tight from my experience on boards, but I would like to hear your feedback on that in a few moments. I would say that we need some runway to determine what kind of progress they are making.
Second, with respect to the definition of diversity, I have a lot of confidence in market forces. If a company does a poor job of promoting diversity, it will have a negative consequence or impact on their bottom line; that's point one. Two, their peers who have a better diversity policy and better return on investment for their shareholders will be able to demonstrate that in a tangible way, and that will impact the company significantly as well.
This is not necessarily about what I can tell a company with respect to how to improve its bottom line. What I'm doing is creating a market condition where individual investors and shareholders can see that this company, for example, has a diversity policy and it really takes into account the diversity that drives innovation, growth, and a better return on investment. This other company does a very—