By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

NEW YORK, March 13 (Reuters) - Donna Anderson, who heads corporate governance at T. Rowe Price TROW.O and has been a powerful voice on a range of hot-button topics in the investment world, intends to retire at the end of this year, the asset manager told Reuters.

T. Rowe Price, one of the world's most powerful investment firms with $1.6 trillion in assets under management, confirmed information from three sources familiar with the matter that Anderson plans to leave her position.

"Donna Anderson has informed us of her decision to retire from her role ... effective at the end of this year, and we have begun transitioning her work to a successor," Eric Veiel, Head of Global Investments and Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price, told Reuters in an email.

Anderson, 56, did not respond to a request for comment.

T. Rowe Price has not yet named a successor for Anderson, who joined the Baltimore-headquartered asset manager in 2007.

For nearly two decades, Anderson spearheaded T. Rowe Price's interactions with hundreds of companies as issues including chief executive pay, the make-up of corporate boards, and environmental, social and governance policies, became increasingly important.

"She is an incredibly well-respected leader, not only in company board rooms and the asset management industry's corporate governance circles, but also within the walls of T. Rowe Price," where she protects the interest of the company's shareholders, Veiel wrote. "She will be missed."

Every spring, investors and corporations alike jockeyed to win support from T. Rowe Price in corporate elections and Anderson was the executive who often helped make the final call on how the investment firm cast its vote.

In the small and tight-knit governance world, Anderson played a critical role in shaping voting policies and then laying them out publicly sometimes at conferences such as this week's Council of Institutional Investors meeting in Washington.

"Donna Anderson has been an important force in the stewardship world and has always been willing to call it as she sees it," said Jessica Wirth Strine, managing partner and chief executive officer at consulting firm Jasper Street Partners. "She has not just followed the pack."

While T. Rowe Price actively invests clients' money in retirement and college savings portfolios, it is not an activist investor that pushes companies on social or public interest issues.

During her career, Anderson often faced off against prominent investors including billionaire activist Nelson Peltz and corporate chiefs like Exxon Mobil's XOM.N head Darren Woods, but never sought the limelight even as she was considered to be a luminary in her own right, lawyers, bankers, and investors said.

There have been other key personnel changes in the governance world this year. In January, Cristiano Guerra, who was instrumental in determining the outcome of some of the America's most hotly contested board battles as head of special situations research at Institutional Shareholder Services, left the proxy advisory firm to join consulting firm Strategic Governance Advisors.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

((svea.herbst@thomsonreuters.com; +617 233 2138; Reuters Messaging: svea.herbst.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))